A Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in New York City

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When Curt Garner joined Chipotle Mexican Grill in 2015 as its first-ever CIO, the company was still accepting orders by fax. A decade later, it runs a $5 billion digital commerce engine across more than 4,100 locations, and Garner, now president and chief strategy and technology officer, has been the architect of nearly every step in between.

The trajectory is a study in how to build a digital business without the weight of legacy systems. Chipotle was lean enough in 2015 that Garner could start on a blank slate.

"We started directly on cloud for everything," he noted. "That has given us the flexibility over time to evolve and change as the marketplace and our needs have changed."

Solving the Supply Problem First

The pivotal early decision was not about the customer-facing app. It was about the kitchen. When Garner went to the board to pitch a digital commerce engine, the concern was that online orders would disrupt the in-restaurant experience. His response was framed around Uber.

What made Uber successful, he explained, was not the elegant app or the live car tracking. It was that Uber made it so compelling to be a driver that when you opened the app, there was always a car nearby. The company solved the supply problem first.

"We need to have a dedicated digital kitchen," Garner told the board. "Let's make sure we never put a crew member in a position of deciding whether to serve the guest in front of them or the one that came online."

Every Chipotle location was effectively given a ghost kitchen. Orders came through a dedicated digital line, separate from the walk-in queue. When COVID hit and digital volume surged from roughly 20% to 85% of all orders within a week, the infrastructure held.

"We had the infrastructure because we were on the cloud," he added. "As the business expanded, we didn't miss a beat."

The Loyalty Flywheel

Rewards followed, and with them a more ambitious idea: that data could transform Chipotle from a transaction engine into a relationship platform.

"Our performance marketing is so much more accurate when we know even a little bit about you as a guest," Garner explained. "Digital by itself is a transactional engine. Rewards starts creating an engagement platform."

The company introduced leaderboards that let guests track their standing among top consumers in their state or city, a feature born from observing customers post their rewards balances on social media and challenge each other to compete. Chipotle gave the contest an official home, and the program is now expanding to the local level.

The most-used feature in the app is reorder. Guests tap a button, select from their top three favorites and check out in seconds. The goal is not novelty but speed and friction removal.

"One of the traps you can fall into in digital commerce is to get confused between commerce and marketing," Garner observed. "Once you over-index on marketing messages, conversion absolutely drops."

AI in the Kitchen and the Supply Chain

The same data foundation is now reshaping operations. Restaurant managers have historically placed food orders three times a week, counting inventory by hand and forecasting their own sales before the lunch rush. Chipotle is changing that.

"We've got a really good idea of what the forecast is," he said. "We can use AI to understand what a suggested order would be and place that order for the manager."

RFID tests are underway to replace manual inventory counts with real-time tracking. Ingredient provenance is now traceable back to the farm, useful for food safety and for storytelling. Chipotle sourced over 40 million pounds of local produce last year, a detail that Garner sees as a future touchpoint with guests.

The Human Line That Technology Should Not Cross

Garner is measured about where AI belongs and where it does not. He illustrates the question with a hypothetical airline announcement: would you feel reassured to learn your flight had no pilots; that it was entirely automated?

"There's a place where technology and humanity intersect that I think is going to be the sweet spot," he said. "All of us need to figure out how to get there without compromising the other part."

At Chipotle, that line is visible in the restaurant itself. There are no kiosks. If a guest walks in, a crew member greets them and builds their order by hand.

"In some cases, we may be the only conversation you've had that day," Garner remarked. "I don't want to take that away from anyone."

Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written three bestselling books, including his latest Getting to Nimble. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on X @PeterAHigh.