Plex Coffee started as a small café with three clear promises: affordable prices, convenience, and a warm community. As they grew from one to four locations, the founders ran into problems that traditional automation didn’t solve, so they decided to integrate ChatGPT Business to keep the human experience without losing efficiency. (openai.com)

What happened and why it matters

Founders Philipp Cheng and Max Kamp had a light startup mindset: automate the repetitive stuff and leave time for the human side. But staff turnover and fragmented knowledge began to hurt service consistency. ChatGPT Business showed up as a practical way to centralize and make that knowledge accessible. (openai.com)

Does that sound familiar if you run a physical business? Many small businesses use WhatsApp or scattered documents, and that ends up stealing valuable time from leaders. Plex turned their 25-page manual into a conversational experience people actually use. (openai.com)

How they use ChatGPT Business in daily operations

• They centralized their knowledge in Notion and enabled the Notion connector so ChatGPT answers with real context from their wikis. This lets anyone ask in natural language and get useful replies. (openai.com)

• They put an iPad in the shop so staff can look up procedures, supply locations, and company values without interrupting managers. It’s simple and fast for someone in the middle of service. (openai.com)

• They’re experimenting with agents to automate orders to suppliers, which could save hours of repetitive admin when each supplier uses a different portal. (openai.com)

Concrete results

Plex reports noticeable drops in internal communication load: fewer WhatsApp messages and fewer interruptions for managers. Onboarding also went from weeks to days because information is now taught conversationally instead of just handing over a PDF. These improvements gave the team back time to focus on the customer experience. (openai.com)

They also use ChatGPT Business for operational research, like estimating revenue potential for new locations and analyzing demand changes around local events. That turns AI into a decision-making tool, not just a query assistant. (openai.com)

Practical lessons if you run a physical business

• Don’t think of AI as a replacement for people. Think of it as a knowledge organizer that frees time for human interaction.

• Start with your friction points: onboarding, recurring questions, ordering, and data collection. A long document can become useful if you turn it into dialogue.

• Use connectors (Notion, Google Drive, etc.) to leverage what you already have without rebuilding everything from scratch.

• Try a small case in a single store before scaling. Plex did this and now plans to grow while keeping the same service philosophy. (openai.com)

What’s next for Plex?

Plex plans to keep expanding while staying lean and using AI as a growth partner. The goal isn’t for technology to remove the warmth, but to let teams spend more time on hospitality while automated systems handle the repetitive work. (openai.com)

If you want to read the original note and see images of the project, check OpenAI’s post about Plex Coffee. Plex Coffee on OpenAI (openai.com)