Musqet, a next-generation payments, Bitcoin and EPOS platform, has partnered with Merlin Griffiths - the Channel 4 "First Dates" mixologist and owner of The Dog & Gun pub - to build an AI-powered sales avatar that holds real-time, consultative conversations with hospitality and food and beverage merchants. The avatar uses Griffiths' likeness and voice to guide prospective customers through the EPOS selection process by understanding how their business operates before recommending anything, directly challenging the industry's long-standing upsell-driven sales model.
The hospitality EPOS market has run on the same playbook for years. Providers sell the platform, then spend the relationship upselling modules that have nothing to do with how a venue actually runs. Merchants pay monthly for features they never asked for and never use. Musqet builds its EPOS stack around the merchant's operation rather than a vendor's revenue targets. The AI avatar puts that principle into practice at the top of the funnel, asking operational questions first and only surfacing the modules a business actually needs.
"Hospitality operators are busy people running tight margins - they don't have time for a sales process built around a vendor's commission targets. What we've built with Merlin changes that. The avatar asks the right questions first, and only recommends outcomes that solve real problems for the merchant," said David Parkinson, Founder and CEO of Musqet.
Why Griffiths fits the role
Griffiths is familiar to millions through a decade on Channel 4's "First Dates," but he has also spent years operating The Dog & Gun pub in Walton, Leicestershire. That combination of public familiarity and hands-on industry credibility is central to the avatar's design. Merchants are more likely to be direct about their real needs when the conversation feels like it's coming from someone who has run a venue himself. Musqet joined Griffiths and a production team in the recording studio to capture his speech mechanics and facial movements for a high-fidelity prototype. Griffiths is also a Bitcoin advocate - Parkinson spotted him on ITV's Saturday Kitchen wearing a Bitcoin t-shirt, reached out, and a mutual alignment of interests led to the partnership.
"Anyone who's actually run a venue knows what it's like to sit through an EPOS pitch and come out the other side with a monthly bill full of things you never asked for. I've been there. The reason I got involved with Musqet is because this is genuinely different - it starts with your operation, not with a product catalogue. If this saves one publican from a contract they regret, it's worth it," said Merlin Griffiths.
How the avatar operates
The avatar runs 24/7 across more than 30 languages, removing the scheduling, inconsistency, and cost-scaling constraints that come with a human-only inbound sales function. This approach reflects a broader shift in how AI Agents & Automation are reshaping customer-facing roles - not by replacing humans entirely, but by handling the repetitive qualification work that bogs down consultative selling. For sales teams, the model shows how an AI avatar can qualify leads against real operational needs before a human ever gets involved.
Recent momentum
The announcement follows a strong stretch for Musqet. The company recently showcased at Money20/20 Amsterdam alongside Vodafone IoT and launched its agentic commerce protocol on Google's Universal Commerce Protocol. These milestones signal the commercial traction behind the avatar's development and the company's broader push into AI-driven merchant tools.
Why this matters for sales professionals
Musqet's avatar is a working example of AI for Sales that inverts the traditional funnel. Instead of pushing a product catalogue and layering on upsells, the system qualifies prospects by understanding their operation first - and only recommends what's actually needed. For sales professionals in any industry where consultative selling matters, the signal is clear: AI can now handle top-of-funnel discovery in a way that builds trust rather than burning it. The question is how quickly competitors running on the old upsell playbook will have to adapt.
Your membership also unlocks:
