It’s a bold statement – one which has the potential to ruffle some feathers – but it reflects Dillon’s bullish stance on technology in the food and drinks space. A former finance exec, Dillon began building an AI platform with Preferabli co-founder Andrew Sussman “a dozen years ago before anybody knew anything about AI”. “We started to build the platform because we knew that digital technologies were the lever, effectively; they were the one thing that would change the most by way of creating these experiences,” Dillon says. Dillon says the aim was never to develop “the next whiz bang technology to be able to walk around and talk”. “Chances are, it’s not what AI does well.”Dillon argues that AI’s role in shaping experiences in the food and drinks space leaves people to shape the most important elements – the ones which bring the human touch.