How to build your own AI chatbot (the Pizza Pilgrims way)

At The Caterer’s 2025 People Summit, Oli Cavaliero, head of innovation and engagement (and formerly head of people) at Pizza Pilgrims, revealed how he and his team built an AI chatbot that can tell staff everything from how to pronounce ‘nduja’ to how many pizzas were sold in a day at any one of its sites.

 

The chatbot, called Joshua, operates as both an interactive company handbook and HR management software that can respond 24/7 to prompts and questions from team members working across Pizza Pilgrims’ 25 restaurants.

 

The platform takes its name from the supercomputer featured in the 1983 film WarGames – a favourite of the Pizza Pilgrims’ co-founders – and took 18 months to develop. The year-long operating cost of the programme came to “around £10,000”, which was less than what Pizza Pilgrims had anticipated.

 

“Joshua is an amazing tool for us to enhance the experience of working. It’s all about removing some of the admin tasks to enable us to focus on the fun stuff,” Cavaliero said.

 

At the summit he offered HR managers and operators several tips on how to build their own version of the AI-powered chatbot, which won the pizzeria the Communication and Influencing Award at The Caterer’s inaugural People Awards last November.

 

Here’s a breakdown of what you should consider before you embark on your first AI-based hire, according to Cavaliero.

 

1. Define its purpose

Cavaliero set out to install a piece of tech that would better engage staff working across Pizza Pilgrims’ restaurants, which are spread all over the UK – from Brighton to Edinburgh. He also knew there needed to be a more efficient way of delivering information between different managers and junior staff. “Our team were spending too much time finding the information rather than focusing on the fun stuff,” Cavaliero recalled.

 

Now, Joshua can handle even more advanced prompts, such as asking if any staff members would be willing to relocate to a new city for a new restaurant opening. “If we are opening in Manchester, Joshua would send a ‘Would you like to relocate?’ message to everyone in our teams. People can reply yes or no, and then we can get a list of people interested and see who they are and generate a conversation,” Cavaliero said.

 

For one site launch, Pizza Pilgrims was able to engage 17 of its existing team members in less than seven hours. “We also send out open shifts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We’ve managed to reduce open shifts by 30%, and with any new jobs that go out, Joshua sends a weekly internal jobs list.”

 

2. Partner with a developer

Pizza Pilgrims partnered with an independent developer to create Joshua, but Cavaliero pointed out there are many more “amazing businesses out there who can do this for you”.

 

Joshua is built on ChatGPT and Vercel and is now managed by All Gravy, an AI-powered employee app for the hospitality and retail industries. The system integrates all kinds of information, ranging from menu items and Google reviews to new starters and shifts, and provides relevant information in the form of a real-time conversation over text.

 

3. Create its brain

Cavaliero stressed this was the “biggest part of the project”, because the AI can only summarise and comment on data that has already been fed to it, meaning the team has to constantly update it with relevant information. Cavaliero monitors the questions he receives from staff every morning and takes this as an opportunity to fill in any blanks on the back-end.

 

“In some cases, we didn’t expect Joshua would be used as much as he was for menu items from front of house. It’s been incredible to see how many questions have been asked on the food side of things by our waiters,” Cavaliero said.

 

4. Write a script with tone of voice in mind

The team spent a lot of time training Joshua to speak in a tone of voice that is aligned with Pizza Pilgrims’ values. Integrating him into the internal comms platform was also critical in ensuring accessibility. Joshua is multilingual and therefore fluent in Italian, which has proved to be particularly beneficial when communicating with many of the pizzeria’s Italian chefs. However, certain questions on allergens or mental health have been flagged within the system to alert actual staff, so that the important things never get missed.

 

5. Test, review and evolve 

When Joshua first launched, the software could not access live information, such as the number of pizzas sold or trading forecasts for the coming week. Now, it has already made those upgrades, and the system is continuing to prove ever more useful to staff who are looking to enhance their experience of working at Pizza Pilgrims.

 

About Pizza Pilgrims

The Elliot brothers founded Pizza Pilgrims in 2012 and opened its first regional site in Brighton in 2022. The B Corp-certified business announced in July last year that it has entered a period of “measured, sustainable growth” through “robust operational processes and risk management strategies”.

 

Find out more about AI in hospitality at The Caterer’s Tech Confex

 

To hear more about how technology and AI is impacting hospitality and empowering its workforce, sign up to attend The Caterer’s inaugural Tech Confex, taking place on Wednesday 25 June