Disclosing a variable technology fee: what the disclosure document has to say when the AI bill moves

Why the fee table no longer fits

A disclosure document normally states each fee a franchisee will pay: an amount, or a formula, and when it falls due. Technology fees have historically been easy: a fixed amount per unit per month.

That is changing. Restaurant Technology News reported on 7 October 2026 that Kutlerri.ai raised USD 4 million from Narahari Investments for managed restaurant AI agents, with fees tied to the orders its catering agent generates, and that pricing varies with business size and the scope of engagement. Its reference customer, the fast-casual group RASA in the Washington D.C. area, is reported to have generated USD 450,000 in new catering revenue over ten months, which the vendor says exceeded RASA spending on the service more than tenfold. Those are company-reported figures without independent verification.

A fee that scales with generated revenue cannot be written as a single number. If the disclosure document says only that a technology fee applies, the prospective franchisee has been told nothing.

The five things the disclosure has to carry instead

• The base of the calculation. Revenue, orders, or gross margin, and measured where: at the point of sale, in the vendor dashboard, or in the franchisor system.
• The rate, or the range of rates, with the factor that moves it. If the rate depends on unit size or engagement scope, say which bands exist.
• The exclusions. Whether an order from an existing customer, a repeat order, or an order placed through a channel the agent did not touch counts toward the fee.
• The treatment of cancellations and refunds. Whether a fee charged on a cancelled order is reversed, and within what period.
• The floor and the cap. A minimum monthly fee turns outcome pricing back into a subscription, and a prospective franchisee is entitled to know the worst month as well as the best.

The published report on Kutlerri.ai does not specify how existing customers, repeat orders, cancellations or refunds are handled. That is not a flaw in the vendor; it is the exact list a franchisor has to resolve before putting the tool into a mandated technology clause.

Why the agreement needs a separate data clause

An agent that works builds an asset. A catering agent accumulates a list of local corporate buyers. A listings integration becomes the canonical record of every unit. A release distributed on 8 October 2026 describes Deliverect and Yext connecting menus, hours, availability and allergen data into the Yext Knowledge Graph so that it flows to search engines, maps and AI assistants, across what the release describes as more than 80,000 restaurant locations, with the About section saying more than 85,000, in more than 70 countries.

Two clauses follow from that:

• Ownership and return of data at termination, covering the customer list, the location records and the historical performance data, in a usable export format.
• Accountability for a wrong AI answer about a unit. When an assistant tells a customer a unit is open and it is not, the agreement should say who bears the consequence. Most agreements written before AI assistants became a discovery channel are silent.

The procurement test to disclose alongside the fee

Writing on Franchising.com on 6 October 2026, Joe Smithberg of Right at Home recommends testing how a new tool integrates with existing systems, confirming it meets security and compliance standards, and confirming it solves a real operational problem, and describes evaluating technology against operational standards, privacy expectations and customer experience before recommending it to franchisees. He also recommends explaining clearly how AI is used, especially for voice AI and automated customer communications, so that employees, franchisees and customers know where human interaction remains.

That last point belongs in the disclosure as much as in the operations manual. A franchisee who will be required to run a voice agent on their own phone line is taking on a customer-facing risk, and should see the requirement before signing, not in a later manual update.

A note on standard-form contracts

Regulators are active on contract form and pre-contract information. The economic brief of 13 October 2026 from Bao Tin tuc va Dan toc, published by Vietnam News Agency, reports that the Vietnam National Competition Commission fined five pay-television companies a combined VND 3.14 billion over standard-form contracts, general transaction conditions and the duty to provide information to consumers. The case is not about franchising, but a franchise agreement is in practice a standard-form contract, and a franchise introduction document is pre-contract information.

What we do not know

We do not know the actual fee schedule of any outcome-priced restaurant AI agent, because none of the sources publishes one.

We do not know whether outcome-based technology fees are already appearing inside franchise disclosure documents, or in what form, since no survey of that has been published.

We do not know how a court or regulator would treat an undisclosed variable technology fee in a franchise relationship, in Vietnam or elsewhere, because no decision on that point is cited in the sources used here.

We do not know whether the reported USD 450,000 result at one fast-casual group transfers to another system, and the figure has not been independently verified.

This worksheet compiles published reporting and company statements. It is not legal advice and does not replace advice from a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction.

This worksheet is not investment advice.