Talks & webinars

Recorded Sessions on AI in Franchising

Every session is here in full, each with a written summary and takeaways so the substance is readable without watching. The earliest sessions are from 2023 and are presented as they were given; the current approach is in the playbook.

Featured

Distributing Intelligence Across a Franchise Network

October 2025 · Springboard Conference · Presented by Dan Monaghan

A keynote on using AI for competitive advantage rather than task convenience. Frontier models now outperform consultants on strategy and MBAs on ideation, so the real question is where a franchisor points the technology. Drawing on the theory of constraints, the session argues AI should be aimed at the bottleneck in the business — moving up a hierarchy of value from tasks to scale, optimization, and finally AI as a strategic thought partner. Two techniques carry most of the leverage: asking the model to interview you instead of writing a perfect prompt, and building an advisory board of researched personas. The second half covers the demand side, where AI search is displacing Google as the discovery layer, with franchise examples in lead follow-up, dead-lead reactivation, broker matching, and support deflection.

Key takeaways

Aim AI at the constraint in the business, not at whatever task is nearest — most AI use sits at the bottom of the value hierarchy and never reaches strategy.

Stop engineering prompts and start briefing: give the model the problem, ask it to interview you, and treat researched personas as a standing advisory board.

Discovery is moving into the models, and franchise development leads sourced from AI assistants can already close at multiples of organic search.

The IFA multipart webinar series

Produced for the International Franchise Association in 2023, when most franchise systems were deciding whether generative AI was worth a meeting.

Foundations of AI for Franchises

June 2023 · International Franchise Association webinar series, part 1 of 2 · Presented by Dan Monaghan · for the International Franchise Association

One of the best-attended IFA webinars of the year by live attendance.

The session that set the baseline for franchising's understanding of generative AI. It separates real AI from the "smart software" long labelled AI, then explains the break: for the first time the technology creates rather than predicts, across text, images, voice, code, and video. The working metaphor is a librarian who has read every book — Google sends you to the shelf, a model simply answers, which is why any brand dependent on organic search leads is exposed. Franchisor and franchisee use cases are demonstrated live, from job descriptions and review responses to FDD and lease-agreement review. The closing argument is structural: AI replaces tasks, not employees, and the only durable advantage is how fast a network learns together.

Key takeaways

Generative AI broke the old pattern-and-prediction model of AI: the system now creates text, images, voice, code, and video rather than classifying what already exists.

An answer engine replaces a search engine, so any franchise brand whose lead flow depends on organic search has a business-model exposure, not just a marketing problem.

AI replaces tasks, not employees — and once tasks come off the plate, the leader owns an organizational-design decision about what to do with the freed capacity.

Harness the Power of AI, Part 2: How Franchisors Are Leveraging AI and ChatGPT to Drive Results

July 2023 · International Franchise Association webinar series, part 2 of 2 · Presented by Dan Monaghan · for the International Franchise Association

Drew even greater live viewership than part 1.

Where part 1 explained the shift, part 2 works through the applications department by department using live examples from operating brands. The through-line is context: the model is already a capable graduate, so the work is giving it your material. Website copy becomes social posts, raw survey comments become a voice-of-customer table and brand message guide, company values become job postings that sound like the brand, and scripted avatars replace re-shot training video. The most consequential example is call coaching — upload the selling framework and a call transcript, and the model scores each stage and returns coaching notes, work no franchisor has the capacity to do across every call. The session ends on readiness rather than tooling: run internal workshops, involve franchisees, build a shared prompt library, name a champion, and publish an AI policy.

Key takeaways

Context is the differentiator: the same model produces generic output from a bare prompt and brand-specific work once you feed it your website, values, frameworks, and customer language.

Call and conversation coaching is the highest-leverage application because most franchisors review almost no calls today — this is new capacity, not replaced headcount.

Readiness is organizational: internal challenges, hands-on workshops, franchisee involvement, a shared prompt library, a named champion, and a published AI policy.