The Next Frontier - Tangible Results from AI Acceleration
The Next Frontier explores how emerging technology and AI are reshaping franchising in real time. Pulled from our monthly insider newsletter, Franchise Unfiltered, this section focuses on practical applications, not hype, showing how forward-thinking franchise systems are using tech to remove friction, scale operations, and build durable competitive advantage.
Dramatic headlines, agents and coding tools continue to take the internet by storm.
I am a month into a deep OpenClaw binge and it blows my mind what I have been able to unlock.
Rather than take you down that rabbit hole (because it’s bleeding edge, technical, and nuanced from a security prospective)...
I will focus today on:
Two concrete and tangible things I am doing inside of a franchisor I have ownership in
And one franchise technology company in my portfolio that is REALLY helping brands do spectacular things.
Two Projects Made Possible by AI Acceleration
I invested in a franchisor, ClearSite Construction Services. I did so because I wanted to be in the arena. Not just helping franchise networks gain a competitive edge via FSN’s technology companies
My brand is a post construction cleanup company. We serve general contractors on large scale commercial, multi family, and industrial scale projects (think data centers and the like). We are the “last trade in the building” and we ready these new builds for the owner to take the keys.
First innovation: over the last 3 months we built a complete custom software to manage the whole business. From Bid to Project completed. We call it Command Center. We own the software and every button was designed for us.
Clear Site Construction Command Center
Just 6 months ago, embarking on a project like this would have taken 8 months to a year to bring it to where it is today in 60 days. And it would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring to life. Not to mention the upkeep.
With a competent developer powered by AI coding tools; it took a fraction of the time. We are able to rapidly develop, iterate, and deploy purpose built tools for our business.
This will become the norm, even for large enterprises, over a long enough time horizon.
Second Innovation: We are finalizing the build / beta testing / and rollout (to my brand) of a stealth FSN portfolio project. This intersects both of my worlds because we are deploying an FSN project into a brand I am also a partner in.
It’s an Internal communications tool
(think chat: Slack, Teams, etc. | Plus video meetings: Zoom, Google meets, etc. | Plus a community forum)
Along with a work management tool
(think Asana, Monday, Clickup, Trello, etc)
And a streamlined knowledge base
(think LMS tools etc)
All built in one franchise-network ready platform.
Every conversation adds to our institutional knowledge.
The problem with how all of the above has historically been deployed in franchise networks is you have 5-7 different tools that are siloed, expensive, and not “franchise ready” (read as: location hierarchy, access permissions, and developed for the franchising nuance).
Through an AI-first product approach, are able to massively reduce subscription bloat and be drastically more effective than cobbling together tools and via a laundry list of logins.
AI is layered over the whole experience so you log in to insights from what’s being talked about and worked on in the brand.
Stealth FSN Portfolio Project
The Next Frontier For Franchise Networks
I believe strongly that the biggest AI unlock for franchise networks over the next 2-5 years will come from agentic platforms that can work across your existing technology stack, and across LLM’s and other frontier models, to do things for you.
This is true for non franchised categories too, but accounting for the supplier and technology nuance that franchising demands, it will be especially powerful for franchise networks.
Not to just get answers to questions. Brainstorm ideas. Or reply to emails.
But to be able to go from:
Ask → Answer
to
Ask → Answer → Multi Step Actions → Recurring Workflows
Without spinning up a data center & in-conjunction with your current technology stack.
Let me try to contextualize this in simple form:
Imagine you can hire 10 new employees tomorrow (without the cost commitment this would normally entail) to tackle a set of specific weekly or monthly workflows (which may include 90 steps each).
Example 1: “Pull these three reports from ABC system. Pull this report in XYZ system. Analyze results in comparison to our KPI targets for XXX. Flag any locations that are having issues with XXX (or are not meeting the targets). Email the respective FBC’s for those locations, copy me to the email, and oh… also distribute this report to the franchisee in advance of their next meeting with corporate. Do this every friday.”
Now imagine having the ability to execute similarly complex workflows for any key levers that drive your business.
For every single location in your network.
You can do these types of things now across departments: marketing, sales, operations, coaching, compliance. You name it.
And you can do it in a way that optimizes the token expenditure output.
This is not something that is “coming soon”. It’s available here and now. Today.
And i’m sitting here typing my soul away telling you: reply to this email to see it in action.
You are left with two choices.
Reach out and see the future thats already here.
Ignore, stay stale for now, and we can talk in a year or two? :)
Want More Tech Insights?
This conversation is just one example of what we share in Franchise Unfiltered, our monthly newsletter for franchisors who want real perspective on what’s changing, what’s working, and what actually matters in franchising right now, including:
Unfiltered perspectives from certified franchise experts embedded in franchise systems every day
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