Certus AI: Replacing the restaurant phone line with Voice AI

Replacing the restaurant phone line with Voice AI

Certus AI is replacing the restaurant phone line with Voice AI. Restaurants lose up to $100,000 per year per location from missed calls, lost orders, and abandoned hold lines. Staff are overwhelmed. IVRs frustrate customers. Call centers are expensive and impersonal. It’s 2025. Guests don’t leave voicemails or wait on hold. They just move on. Certus is an AI voice agent built for restaurants. It answers every call, 24/7 — taking orders, processing deliveries, booking reservations, upselling, and handling complaints in English, Spanish, French and more. Certus is built to manage the phone line end to end, from the customer call to the restaurant tech stack, with zero human intervention required. It currently integrates with industry-leading systems like Toast, Square, Clover, UberEats, DoorDash, and more. We’re building the voice layer of the modern restaurant — the employee they’ll never fire. We started Certus because we lived the pain. Gurveer (CEO) grew up answering phones in his family’s restaurant and helped operate them, growing from 1 to 11 locations in 7 years. Later, he and Adam (CRO) ran a restaurant growth startup to help others increase revenue, but kept watching clients bleed cash because no one picked up the phone. So we built the solution the industry always wished existed. Until now, this problem was considered unsolvable. But Voice AI has finally crossed the conversational chasm and 72% of consumers now prefer AI over humans as long as it means faster and better service. More importantly, the market is begging for this. The North American restaurant industry crossed $1 trillion in 2024, and it's projected to hit $1.5 trillion in 2025. Yet over $100 billion is still lost annually to missed calls, human error, and outdated tech. As the market continues to grow, so do the losses! Our customers say it best: - “Certus changed my life overnight.” - “We were losing the ability to give great in-house service — the phone was killing us.” - “70% of my business comes through the phone. That’s mine and my 16 staffs livelihood.” - “Before Certus, I used to lose 40 - 60 calls a day…. now my printer just stays printing!” - “I’ve been in the business 38 years. I’ve been waiting for this since then.” Certus is here to fix the $120B phone problem — one call at a time. And in doing so, we’re redefining how the restaurant industry communicates forever, starting with the phone line.

Active Founders

Gurveer Singh

Founder

Co-founder & CEO of Certus AI. I started answering phones at my family’s restaurant at 9 and helped scale it from 1 to 11 locations. Later, I co-founded a restaurant growth startup with Adam (now Certus CRO), helping independents grow revenue across takeout, catering, and event— but clients still lost money because no one answered the phone. That’s what led me to build Certus: the solution I wish we had when I was 15 and the kitchen was on fire.

Gurveer Singh

Founder

Co-founder & CEO of Certus AI. I started answering phones at my family’s restaurant at 9 and helped scale it from 1 to 11 locations. Later, I co-founded a restaurant growth startup with Adam (now Certus CRO), helping independents grow revenue across takeout, catering, and event— but clients still lost money because no one answered the phone. That’s what led me to build Certus: the solution I wish we had when I was 15 and the kitchen was on fire.

Adam Gamieldien

Founder

Co-founder & CRO of Certus AI. Before Certus, I helped scale a restaurant growth startup with Gurveer, working directly with dozens of independent restaurants and closing our deals. We helped drive revenue across delivery, catering, and events — but time after time, sales fell through because no one picked up the phone. That’s what led us to build Certus. I now lead GTM and speak with operators daily to uncover what’s broken and how Certus can fix it.

Adam Gamieldien

Founder

Co-founder & CRO of Certus AI. Before Certus, I helped scale a restaurant growth startup with Gurveer, working directly with dozens of independent restaurants and closing our deals. We helped drive revenue across delivery, catering, and events — but time after time, sales fell through because no one picked up the phone. That’s what led us to build Certus. I now lead GTM and speak with operators daily to uncover what’s broken and how Certus can fix it.

Isaac Nichols

Founder

Co-founder & CTO of Certus AI. I got my start at 16 with a full-time internship at Falcon Eye Drones. Since then, I’ve built AI systems across logistics, telecom, and restaurant tech, always focused on automation and operational leverage. Before Certus, I was a founding engineer at Hive AI, co-founded 2 startups, and built a full-stack hospitality management system. That gave me deep insight into how restaurants really run, and why fixing the phone line had to be next.

Isaac Nichols

Founder

Co-founder & CTO of Certus AI. I got my start at 16 with a full-time internship at Falcon Eye Drones. Since then, I’ve built AI systems across logistics, telecom, and restaurant tech, always focused on automation and operational leverage. Before Certus, I was a founding engineer at Hive AI, co-founded 2 startups, and built a full-stack hospitality management system. That gave me deep insight into how restaurants really run, and why fixing the phone line had to be next.

Company Launches

☎️ 👨‍🍳 Certus AI: Replacing the Restaurant Phone Line with Voice AI

See original launch post

We’re Gurveer (CEO), Adam (CRO), and Isaac (CTO), and we’re solving the $100B+ phone problem for restaurants

https://youtu.be/ydTdJDJMiKE

TL;DR — Certus AI is an AI voice agent for restaurants. Certus answer every call, take orders, processes deliveries, and books reservations.

❌ The Problem

Restaurants lose up to $100,000 per year per location because of missed calls.

The average restaurants gets 75 calls/day from customers trying to order, book, or ask a simple question
25% of those calls go unanswered on any given day
Every missed call = lost revenue/ angry customer
Call centers are expensive. IVRs frustrate customers. Staff is overloaded.

The phone is still one of the most valuable channels in hospitality, yet it costs the industry $100B+ annually.

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✅ Our Solution

Certus AI is a multilingual Voice AI agent that answers every call:

Takes orders
Books reservations
Processes deliveries
Handles complaints better than humans
And always upsells, increasing AOV

It answers every call, in real time, and connects to POS, reservation and delivery systems like:

Toast
Square
Clover
UberEats
DoorDash & more

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🎯 Why Now

72% of consumers are comfortable speaking to AI if it means faster service
LLMs and voice synthesis have finally crossed the quality threshold for real-world use
Labor costs are rising, staff is burning out, and operators are actively searching for solutions
The restaurant industry crossed $1T in 2024 and it's bleeding $100B/year to missed calls, human error, and outdated workflows

👋 Who We Are

I’m Gurveer, and I’ve been answering restaurant phones since I was 9.

My family started with one location and grew to 11. At every stage, the phone made or broke the business: missed calls meant missed orders, staff burnout, and broken operations. That chaos didn’t go away as we scaled.

In the early days, we couldn’t afford to lose revenue, BUT, we also couldn't afford to hire someone just to manage the phone. So I became the phone guy. I was so obsessed with not missing calls that I carried our restaurant hotline with me everywhere: to the gym, school, or even parties. No joke. I’d step out mid-convo to take a catering order.

Later, Adam (CRO) and I ran a growth startup for restaurants. We’d drive serious demand, but the same problem always came back: no one picked up the phone to covert that into revenue.

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That obsession, and frustration, is what led us to build Certus. The phone line is still one of the most valuable, yet broken, parts of a restaurant. Now, it’s finally being replaced by Certus AI.

💬 What Our Customers Say

Certus changed my life overnight.”

“We were losing the ability to give great in-house service… the phone was killing us.”

“70% of my business comes through the phone. That’s mine and my 16 staffs livelihood.”

“Before Certus, I used to lose 40 - 60 calls a day…. now my printer just stays printing!”

“I’ve been in the business 38 years. I’ve been waiting for this since then.

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🙋 Our Ask

Do you know a restaurant group, franchise operator, or overwhelmed manger? A warm intro would mean the world!

👑 Thank you!

We’re super excited to introduce you to Certus AI, but more importantly, we’re excited to build and grow alongside all of you!

– Gurveer, Adam & Isaac