Key points
- According to detikJateng (9 May 2026), SSB was recruiting AI engineers to control operations and administration and to cut food waste.
- The same questions come up at a small warung, and most can be answered from your POS records: transactions, items sold, shift totals, stock, and cancellations.
- AI only reads what was recorded. Orders outside the cashier, what's happening around the warung, taste, physical stock counts, and price decisions still need people.
- Kazeer AI answers questions about your business records on the web or in WhatsApp, and all three Kazeer plans list the chatbot.
A chain of soto warung from Boyolali posted a job opening for AI engineers, and it made the news. For a business with one outlet or a few, hiring an AI engineer usually isn't an option. But the questions they want AI to answer come up at a small warung too, and most of them can be answered from the sales records in your POS.
Note: Kazeer has no connection to the warung in the news. The facts about it come from the detikJateng report linked below.
What was reported
On Saturday, 9 May 2026, detikJateng reported (opens in a new tab) that Spesial Soto Boyolali (SSB) Hj Hesti had posted an AI engineer job opening on LinkedIn. According to the report, SSB has 85 outlets in Indonesia and one in Saudi Arabia, all run from its head office.
Speaking to detikJateng, SSB's owner and president director, Hj. Hesti Noviasari, confirmed the hiring. In her view, AI engineers are needed to support management, serve customers better, and cut food waste. Many outlets run from one place need control and systems, for operations and for administration alike. The examples she gave include opening and closing hours at each outlet, costs, staff, stock, and checks at the cashier. The cashier checks matter because at SSB, customers take their own side dishes and pay after eating, so the cashier's records need to line up with what was produced. On the operations side, she also mentioned "how many customers come in, then how many staff that needs" (translated from Indonesian), along with how much food has to be cooked.
On food waste, SSB runs a semi-buffet setup, and according to Hesti, SSB is committed to not reselling leftover food. She hopes AI can pick up customer patterns, so the amounts of sate, gorengan (fried snacks), and soto (which is cooked in large batches) come out closer to what sells. When the report came out, SSB already had 2 AI engineers and was looking for about 10 more.
The same questions at a small business
The scale is very different, but the questions are the same, and each question has a record that answers it. Your cashier already keeps most of those records.
| Question | At a small warung | The record that answers it |
|---|
| How many customers come in? | How many transactions per hour and per day | Transactions at the cashier, with their times |
| How much should we cook? | How many portions sold on the same weekday in past weeks | Items sold per day |
| How many staff do we need? | How many people at busy hours and at slow hours | Sales per hour and totals per cashier shift |
| Which stock is running low? | Which ingredients to buy tomorrow | Remaining stock, plus a physical count |
| Does the cashier match the records? | The cash in the drawer, QRIS, and card match the payments on record | Totals per payment method and the list of cancellations |
One transaction isn't always one person, since a whole table can pay at once, but the pattern still shows. If your POS app doesn't show sales per hour, write down today's sales figure every hour. The guide to shift schedules shows how.
There's one record the cashier usually doesn't keep: how much was cooked and how much was left over. Without it, nobody can answer the food waste question, not AI and not you. How to match the cashier every night is in the guide to the end-of-day cash-up.
Jobs AI can help with now
With complete records, an AI tool that reads business records can already help with:
- Reading sales and stock records: this week's best seller, sales so far today, ingredients running low.
- Answering routine questions in everyday words, without opening one report after another.
- Summing up yesterday's sales and stock.
- Pointing out busy hours, so ingredients and staff are ready before the line forms.
The limit is clear: AI only reads what was recorded. Gorengan paid for without going through the cashier, orders cancelled outside the app, and ingredients thrown out without a note don't exist in its answers. If the records have gaps, the answers are wrong too, even when they sound confident.
What to watch out for
- Wrong answers. Check the period in the answer, and open the report before a big decision such as a large purchase or a price change.
- Customer data. Don't paste customers' names, phone numbers, or addresses into general AI chat apps.
- Cost. Building your own program means paying people to build and maintain it. For a small outlet, a ready-made tool usually makes more sense: compare its cost with the recap time it saves you.
What still needs people
Even in the news report, the AI engineers are there to help with management work. At a small warung, these jobs still need people:
- A boxed-meal order promised over someone's personal WhatsApp that isn't in the cashier yet.
- Things outside the warung that last week's records don't show, such as rain, school holidays, or a family celebration in the next neighborhood.
- Taste and quality: a broth that's a bit flat, or gorengan gone cold. You taste these; you don't read them in a report.
- Counting physical stock on the shelves and in the fridge, because spilled or spoiled ingredients aren't always recorded.
- Talking with staff about shift swaps or cash differences.
- Price and menu decisions: raising a price, dropping a dish, or adding a new side dish.
AI gives you numbers to weigh. The decision is still yours.
Start with one question
Pick one question whose answer you can use this week, then answer it with the records you have. For example: how many portions of soto should you prepare for Saturday?
Worked example: Over the last four Saturdays, you sold 62, 70, 58, and 66 portions of soto. That's 62 + 70 + 58 + 66 = 256 portions, so the average is 256 ÷ 4 = 64 portions per Saturday.
Then compare it with the leftovers. Say you've been preparing 80 portions every Saturday. With an average of 64 sold, an average of 16 portions are left over (80 − 64). If you prepare 72 portions, that's still above your highest Saturday (70 portions), and the average leftover drops to 8 portions (72 − 64). Write down the leftovers every Saturday for a month, then adjust again.
This sum is only as good as the records behind it. If some portions are paid for without going through the cashier, the number sold looks lower than it really is, and you could end up preparing too little.
How to record leftovers is in the guide to reducing ingredient waste, and how to compare the same weekday is in the guide to the daily sales report.
Where Kazeer AI fits
Kazeer is a POS app with an AI assistant, so you don't need to build your own program. Its records come straight from the cashier: sales and items sold, cancellations that stay visible in the records, totals per payment method (cash, QRIS, card) and per cashier shift, and COGS and tax from every sale. COGS per menu item can be worked out from its recipe, and ingredient stock goes down automatically with each sale.
Kazeer AI helps you understand those records. You ask in everyday words, on the web or in WhatsApp, for example "What sells best?" or "Which items should I check?" (Kazeer's own examples are in Indonesian: "Apa yang paling laku?" and "Barang apa yang perlu dicek?"). You can also ask about yesterday's sales, or ask for business advice, such as "Your busy hours are 11:00 to 13:00. Get your stock ready and promote your signature items." The hours in that advice are sample data, and the advice is translated: Kazeer AI gives its advice in Indonesian.
The same limit applies. Sales that never go through the cashier aren't read, and how many portions to cook is still your call.
All three Kazeer plans list the Kazeer AI chatbot: the Free plan, Standard Monthly, and Standard Annual. More example questions are in the guide to asking Kazeer AI, and a sample conversation is in the Kazeer AI section.
Steps for this week
- Make sure every sale goes through the cashier, including side dishes customers take themselves, and record cancellations at the cashier, not on paper.
- If your POS app supports recipes, set up recipes for your main dishes, so ingredient stock goes down with each portion sold.
- For one main dish, write down every day how much was cooked and how much was left over.
- After four weeks, work out the average as in the example above, then change just one thing: how much you cook, the shift schedule, or what you buy.