An AI vendor data agreement needs four clauses a no-training promise does not cover: what counts as your content, derivatives, flow-down, and an exit with a date.
Christian Pillat · September 9, 2026 · 5 min read
Insights
AI in Franchising
Practical notes on AI in franchising: what to govern, what to measure, and what actually changes for the people running locations.
Governed AI
Franchise AI Content Ownership: Three Questions Hiding Inside One
Franchise AI content ownership is three questions, not one: copyright, your franchise agreement, and the vendor's terms. Only the first has a public answer.
Christian Pillat · September 8, 2026 · 6 min read
Governed AI
The Franchise AI Readiness Checklist: Nine Items With a Yes or No Answer
A franchise AI readiness checklist worth running is nine yes-or-no items, each with a named owner and a document behind the answer. Three of them decide the rest.
Christian Pillat · September 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Franchise Tech
Franchise Technology Planning for 2027: What to Fund and What to Stop Calling a Pilot
Franchise technology planning for 2027 is mostly a subtraction exercise. What to fund, what to retire, and the three questions every line item has to answer.
Christian Pillat · September 1, 2026 · 5 min read
Industry Trends
Emerging Franchise Brands Statistics: The Numbers That Exist and the Ones That Do Not
Emerging franchise brands statistics, each with its date and denominator — plus the figures this industry quotes constantly that no published source supports.
Christian Pillat · August 28, 2026 · 5 min read
Field Coaching
The Future of Franchise Field Coaching: What Is Left When Retrieval Is Free
The future of franchise field coaching is a narrower job, not a bigger territory. Four predictions, how you will know if they were wrong, and what does not move.
Christian Pillat · August 27, 2026 · 5 min read
Franchise Tech
The Franchise Software Landscape 2026: Six Categories and the Seams Between Them
The franchise software landscape 2026 sorts into six working categories. The failures live in the seams between them, and nobody is paid to own a seam.
Christian Pillat · August 25, 2026 · 5 min read
Governed AI
The Franchise AI Maturity Model: Five Stages You Can Test This Week
A franchise AI maturity model with no adjectives in it: five stages, each defined by something you can go and check in your own network inside a week.
Christian Pillat · August 24, 2026 · 5 min read
Industry Trends
Multi-Unit Franchise Ownership Trends and the Posture an Emerging Brand Picks Early
Multi unit franchise ownership trends get reported as a rising line, but only the level is published. What an emerging brand decides before its first three-pack.
Christian Pillat · August 22, 2026 · 5 min read
Enterprise Value
After a Private Equity Franchise Acquisition: What the First Year Looks Like
A private equity franchise acquisition changes the calendar before it changes the strategy: the hundred-day plan, the reporting cadence, and what franchisees notice.
Christian Pillat · August 21, 2026 · 5 min read
Enterprise Value
What Successful Emerging Franchise Brands Give Up in Order to Compound
Successful emerging franchise brands pay visible costs for durable habits: declined candidates, a slower opening curve, support funded from royalties, not fees.
Christian Pillat · August 19, 2026 · 5 min read
Enterprise Value
Should I Sell My Franchise Company? First Work Out Which Question That Is
Should I sell my franchise company is four questions in one costume: fatigue, illiquidity, a missing skill, or a number somebody named. Separate them first.
Christian Pillat · August 18, 2026 · 5 min read
Network Operations
Franchise Network Culture Metrics: Counting What Adjectives Hide
Franchise network culture metrics are behavioural counts, not sentiment scores. What is measurable, what predicts a rollout, and where nothing is measured at all.
Christian Pillat · August 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Network Operations
Multi-Unit Franchise Development Starts With Operators You Already Have
Multi unit franchise development works best on operators already in the network. The profile, the conversation to have a year early, and what a three-pack needs.
Christian Pillat · August 14, 2026 · 5 min read
Franchisee Success
Franchise Expansion Financing Requirements: What Is Actually in the File
Franchise expansion financing requirements are decided by the store you already own. What a lender assembles, how they restate your P&L, and the six-month cleanup.
Christian Pillat · August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Franchise Tech
When Private Equity Owns Your Franchise Software Vendor
A private equity franchise software vendor comes with a clock. What a hold period does to pricing and roadmaps, and the ownership questions buyers should ask.
Christian Pillat · August 11, 2026 · 5 min read
Governed AI
Franchise AI Budget Planning When You Have No History to Extrapolate
Franchise AI budget planning without a prior-year cell: the five rows a worksheet needs, how to set a per-location baseline, and alerts that fire in time.
Christian Pillat · August 7, 2026 · 5 min read
Why Cozee
Switching to Franchise Software: How to Know It Is Time
Switching to franchise software is a smaller decision than it sounds when the thing you are leaving is group texts. The signs it is time, and a realistic week one.
Christian Pillat · August 5, 2026 · 5 min read
Why Cozee
Increase Franchise Business Value: What That Promise Has to Mean
Increase franchise business value is a sentence vendors say and rarely test. Here is what it has to mean, who reads the evidence, and where software genuinely helps.
Christian Pillat · August 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Why Cozee
Franchise Technology Investment: What New Capital Buys, and What It Cannot
Franchise technology investment has reached franchise ops software. What a funding round proves about the market — and what it cannot change about a data model.
Christian Pillat · August 2, 2026 · 5 min read
Industry Trends
Franchise Delivery Profitability: What the Channel Actually Costs
Franchise delivery profitability is decided per order, not per channel. The four costs, the menu-price arithmetic, and the refund line most operators never audit.
Christian Pillat · July 28, 2026 · 5 min read
Industry Trends
The State of AI in Franchising, 2026: Grading January's Predictions
The state of AI franchising 2026, graded against January's five predictions: no clean hits, three halves, and the calls I wrote badly enough that nobody can settle.
Christian Pillat · July 28, 2026 · 5 min read
Enterprise Value
How to Increase Franchise Valuation in the Next Twelve Months
Increase franchise valuation in a year by separating the levers that answer to work from the ones that answer only to elapsed time you cannot buy back.
Christian Pillat · July 27, 2026 · 5 min read
Enterprise Value
Scaling a Founder-Led Franchise: The Four Handoffs Nobody Schedules
Scaling a founder-led franchise means handing off four things nobody wrote down: exceptions, tie-breaks, noticing, and being the call of last resort.
Christian Pillat · July 26, 2026 · 5 min read
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