Marc Lore’s food startup Wonder says its new AI, Wonder Create, can design and launch a complete restaurant brand in under a minute, producing names, menus, pricing and health information from a single text prompt. The company says those virtual brands will plug directly into Wonder’s delivery app and network of tech-enabled kitchens, which combine human cooks with conveyor belts, robotic arms and acquired robotics technology. Wonder has acquired or partnered with a range of food businesses and media brands, and Marc Lore has described the product as a 'Shopify front-end with an AI prompt.' The plan ties near-term product rollouts to an expanded automation roadmap and a public listing timetable announced by Lore and the company.

Marc Lore’s Wonder has moved from concept to a formal product strategy that promises to let influencers, entrepreneurs and anyone with an idea build a restaurant brand in a minute. The feature, called Wonder Create, and companion "vibe code" tools are designed to generate a full brand package from a single text prompt, Wonder said, producing a name, imagery, menu recipes, pricing and health information without manual design work.

From prompt to plate

Wonder says the output isn't just a logo. The company claims Wonder Create will generate the assets a brand needs to trade online, and then connect that virtual restaurant to Wonder’s order fulfilment stack. That includes a delivery app, kitchen operations software and the physical kitchens that prepare the food, the company said. Marc Lore has described the experience as like a Shopify front-end with an AI prompt, a comparison intended to signal ease of use for non-technical partners.

Under the plan, influencers and other partners will be able to "vibe code" a concept from one prompt and monetise that idea, with Wonder taking a cut of orders driven to its platform. Wonder Create was publicly announced earlier this year as the mechanism to build restaurant brands on the company’s software, the company added in its briefing.

Behind the interface sits a vertically integrated business model. Wonder combines owned restaurant concepts, a delivery app and automated kitchen hardware, the company says, allowing it to control cooking, branding and fulfilment end-to-end. To support that claim, Wonder has acquired or partnered with a set of food businesses and technologies, including Grubhub, Blue Apron and the food media brand Tastemade, according to the company’s disclosures.

Automation and the kitchen footprint

Wonder’s kitchens mix human staff with conveyor belts, robotic arms and other automation to reduce labour and increase menu variety, the company says. Equipment the firm highlights includes machines that can sear a steak in six minutes, cook pizza in 90 seconds and prepare pasta without water.

Wonder claims it can operate dozens of distinct restaurant concepts from a single kitchen footprint, an efficiency it uses to justify its vertically integrated approach.

Mastheads

The company has also acquired robotics used by Sweetgreen, a package various reports have identified as Spyce or Spice Robotics and which others have referred to externally as the Infinite Kitchen. Wonder says it plans to deploy that bowl-making robot and derivative equipment in restaurants, and to incorporate the technology into an automation roadmap. One report gave an acquisition price of $186 million, although that figure appears only in a single account.

Part of the roadmap is what Wonder calls an "infinite sauce machine," which the company says will be able to reproduce a very large share of recipes found online. Estimates in reporting range from about 80 percent to close to 90 percent of internet recipes that could be recreated by that machine. Wonder argues that such equipment will allow far greater menu diversity and customisation than traditional restaurant kitchens typically manage.

Wonder has set out specific staging for its automation plans. The company plans to add the Spyce or Infinite Kitchen bowl robots in an initial New York City trial next year, followed by 50 to 100 installations in 2027, reports say. Those deployments are meant to extend the number of distinct recipes a single kitchen can produce, while reducing human labour in the back of house.

On the business side, Lore has spoken publicly about preparing the company for a public listing and sketched multi-year rollout goals for tens of thousands of automated kitchens. Different outlets report widely varying short-term counts and targets for Wonder’s physical locations and ghost kitchens, from 40 with a plan to reach 100 within nine months, to 50, 83, 100 and 120. Projected rollouts include targets such as 200 by 2026 and 400 next year in different reports, and a long-term goal of 10,000 kitchens by 2040; each number appears in a specific outlet’s coverage and should be treated as a single-source claim.

Wonder has also disclosed substantial investment in technology. One report said the company has spent more than $1 billion on software, culinary engineering and food science. The company highlights operational benchmarks such as high on-time delivery claims to support its vertical integration strategy and to persuade partners and investors of the efficiency gains it expects from combining AI-driven brand creation with automated preparation and integrated delivery.

Not all details line up across coverage. Sources diverge on the robotics vendor name, the price paid, exact rollout targets and the timing for an initial public offering.

One single-source claim on LinkedIn cited a $30 billion IPO target for 2027, while other reporting described readiness to pursue a 2028 offering. Those contradictions underline how rapidly the company has been expanding its messaging and partnerships, and how different outlets have focused on different milestones.

For now, Wonder is pitching a coordinated proposition to creators and would-be restaurateurs. Build a brand with one prompt, Wonder says, then plug into kitchens that use automation to scale production. The company positions its platform as a way to lower the technical, culinary and logistical barriers to opening a restaurant, by offering brand creation, recipe engineering and fulfilment as a single bundled product.

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Wonder says the influencer-facing "vibe code" and Wonder Create feature will arrive by the end of the year, with the bowl-making robots due for a New York City trial next year and wider installs planned for 2027.

This article was created with AI assistance.