As someone who’s spent years helping brands build stronger franchise systems, I’ve seen firsthand how operations can make or break a business. Sales and marketing often get the spotlight, but the real magic—the kind that sustains growth—happens behind the scenes.
In a recent episode of The Advisory Board Podcast, I sat down with Tushar Mishra, Co-founder and CEO of Delightree, to talk about how AI is reshaping franchise operations. What stood out most wasn’t the buzzword stuff—it was his practical, experience-driven approach to making AI actually work inside franchise systems.
Meet Tushar Mishra
Tushar isn’t just another tech founder chasing AI headlines. He’s a problem solver who built Delightree, the fastest-growing franchisee operations platform, after noticing that operational insights often die in silos.
Before Delightree, he co-founded Survaider, an NLP analytics company that helped businesses make sense of customer feedback. That experience taught him a powerful truth: data is useless if no one acts on it.
Today, Delightree helps franchisors manage everything post-agreement—onboarding, compliance, training, and daily ops—from a mobile-first platform. It’s powering over 90 brands and nearly 5,000 locations.
Fun fact: Tushar’s a heavy-metal fan who used to headbang to Megadeth and Pantera—proof you can be calm on the outside and intense about solving hard problems.
Structure Your Data Before You Automate
“When it comes to AI, the most important thing that you as a business would have is data. So the first place to start here is within your ops—if you don’t have SOPs built out, if you don’t have any measurement of how franchises are performing from an ops perspective… all of this is going to be hard.”
Tushar’s point was simple: automation fails without structure. Start by auditing what data you already have—SOPs, audits, checklists, ratings, and training records. That inventory becomes your foundation for any AI initiative.
Turn SOPs Into Answers and Cut Support Volume by 50%
“Majority of our customers use AI Search, and they’ve been able to deflect over half of support requests and queries that come from owners directly to HQ. All those little things—‘how to do this,’ ‘where do I find that’—can be automated.”
By turning operations manuals into searchable, AI-powered knowledge bases, franchisors can instantly answer repetitive questions. If an answer doesn’t exist, it becomes a signal to create new documentation. Over time, support volume drops by 50–80%.
3) Keep the Knowledge Base Fresh, Permissioned, and Context-Aware
“Once you have your documents in one place, label who this is relevant to and who can access this. Think of an LLM as a child—you’re teaching it who it can answer what to, and who it should not answer when they ask a specific question.”
He emphasized data labeling and governance. Different roles (owners, FBCs, or front-line staff) need different visibility—and AI should respect that. Context also matters: rules differ by state, so the system must either know a user’s location or ask clarifying questions before giving guidance.
Watch this moment at 15:20 & Watch this moment at 20:03
Onboarding That Scales; Training That’s Just-in-Time (and Multilingual)
“When it comes to franchisee onboarding, most businesses have a weird process… you want it tight, guided, and consistent. With AI, the owner can ask, ‘What do I do next?’ and get a direct answer.”
“You could be at a store and not speak English, but still ask a question in Spanish and get a response in Spanish—and still get the job done.”
Tushar described an AI assistant that leads new owners step-by-step, even connecting them with pre-approved vendors for tasks like inspections or certifications. Once onboarding is automated, training should shift to micro-learning—short, mobile lessons delivered in any language.
Watch this moment at 24:55 & Watch this moment at 27:58
Empower Coaches with Predictive Insights—Don’t Replace Them
“Imagine you’re an FBC and you ask AI, ‘What should I talk about today?’ AI will search through your last audit score, revenue, reviews, training data—and tell you exactly what to focus on.”
“Don’t automate the coaching layer. Keep it human. You want to empower that person to do their job 10x faster, so they can manage 10x more locations.”
The future of franchise coaching isn’t robots replacing people—it’s AI co-piloting the conversation. By surfacing data patterns across performance metrics, AI helps coaches spend less time analyzing and more time guiding owners toward action.
Watch this moment at 33:10 & Watch this moment at 36:54
Wrap Up Thoughts
Talking with Tushar reinforced a core leadership principle: technology only matters if it closes the loop from insight to action. The future of franchise ops isn’t robots replacing coaches; it’s great coaches supported by clearer data, faster analysis, and cleaner workflows.
Listen & Watch the Full Conversation
Watch the full episode on YouTube:
Check out the Podcast Hub Channel
Connect with the Tushar Mishra on LinkedIn and Delightree.com
