AI deployed to catch bartenders stealing drinks

KITCHENER - Smart cameras are being deployed to record bartenders pouring drinks, and software that uses artificial intelligence analyzes the video to ensure the drinks are paid for.

We have custom, proprietary software," said Tyrone Moodley, a co-founder of the Kitchener-based startup Bevcounter.

The software uses artificial intelligence to automatically scrutinize the actions of bartenders. Bevcounter provides the service for $29 a month.

We look at the body, we look at the hands, we look at the glass," said Moodley. Every time we count a drink, we take a video and push that up to the cloud for further analysis, and we provide analytics to the owner."

The startup was co-founded about 18 months ago by Moodley, his brother Daelon Moodley and Aqib Mumtaz, who has a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Bergen in Norway.

The idea for the startup came out of a visit Tyrone made to Scottsdale, Ariz., where his brother worked as a bartender. Tyrone wanted to know why his brother was not managing the place, and Daelon told him bartenders make more money than bar managers - a lot more.

They do that by providing some free drinks to regular customers who are big tippers, said Tyrone.

The brothers talked about it. Most bars already have cameras deployed at the bar, but it takes many hours to go through the video to try and catch someone giving away free drinks.

Software enhanced with artificial intelligence and connected to the cameras could monitor the bartenders instead of managers, Tyrone said.

That doesn't exist," said Daelon.

What if we build it?" said Tyrone.

Well, if we build this, it could be a really revolutionary product because it would reduce the amount of fraud and inventory shrinkage," said Daelon.

The brothers recruited Mumtaz, and within six months had an early version of Bevcounter. They signed up clients to deploy and test the technology - Bevcounter's software can be easily deployed into most in-bar cameras. One of the first was Abe Erb at 151 Charles St. W. in Kitchener. Another was a large hotel in Vancouver with nine bars.

And what happened was the bartenders were colluding; they were basically defrauding the hotel," said Moodley.

Experienced bartenders showed new hires how to provide free drinks to some customers and get large tips in return.

The only way the owners could figure out they were losing money was manually counting every drink poured on the cameras, and comparing that data to point-of-sales data," said Moodley.

It cost hundreds of dollars a day to pay someone to watch the videos, so thefts could go undetected for years. When owners at the testing sites saw what Bevcounter could do, they were impressed.

They love the product and they signed up immediately," said Tyrone.

The seed-stage startup is looking for investors and preparing to rapidly expand sales.

Brock Boehler, one of three owners of Abe Erb in Kitchener, said the popular bar/restaurant in the Tannery deployed Bevcounter about eight months ago.

It is an effective and unobtrusive way to prevent theft, he said.

I think it is a great idea, and I think there is a lot of opportunity," said Boehler. This is a problem in the industry that needs to be addressed."

Terry Pender is a Waterloo Region-based general assignment reporter for The Record. Reach him via email: tpender@therecord.com