As CNBC notes, less than half of Starbucks' 80 global markets has access to the company's mobile app. This deal can potentially expand the app's availability to countries that don't have it yet -- in fact, Brightloom and Starbucks expect franchisees abroad to be among the first to sign up. The first ones and not the only ones, because other restaurants and companies can also buy access to the platform so they don't have to build a digital customer experience from scratch.

Starbucks is just one of the restaurant companies making technology-related advertisements as of late. Just a few months ago, McDonald's bought a machine learning startup to build an AI for drive-thru windows. Kevin Johnson, the coffee chain's CEO, said in a statement: