Chipotle Mexican Grill is looking to recruit additional staff in anticipation of the upcoming “burrito season” and they are deploying artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to facilitate the recruitment process.

The company revealed their hiring plans on Wednesday, revealing their goal of hiring 20,000 new employees in preparation for their peak season.

Ilene Eskenazi, the Chief Human Resources Officer, emphasized that the job openings provide candidates the potential to begin and advance their careers within the company.

“As current team members have demonstrated, our restaurants can be the foundation of a fulfilling career, and we’re committed to bringing in the best candidates who share our values and onboarding them as efficiently as possible,” she added.

Chipotle has capitalized on AI technology, including a virtual team member called Ava Cado, in its hiring efforts.

That virtual team member has increased Chipotle’s applicant flow by almost double and brought the average timeframe for an applicant jumping into their role after submitting their application down by eight days to four, according to the company.

Chipotle said Ava Cado’s capabilities include talking with candidates, answering their questions about Chipotle, collecting basic information, scheduling interviews for hiring managers, and sending offers to candidates who are selected by managers.

The company’s AI technology arises from a partnership with Paradox, a collaboration kicked off in the fall of last year.

Eskenazi said at the time that the Paradox technology “operates as if we’ve hired additional administrative support for all our restaurants, freeing up more time for managers to support team members and provide an exceptional guest experience.”  

More than 130,500 people worked for Chipotle as of the end of 2024, according to the company’s annual report. Its workforce in America includes about 126,200 restaurant workers and nearly 1,600 people in restaurant support center and field leadership roles. 

The company is looking to eventually expand to 7,000 North American restaurants.

It currently has more than 3,700 locations across seven countries.