8 Next-Level AI Uses for Busy Indoor Playground Owners

Running an indoor playground or play café isn’t for the faint of heart. You’re managing a brick-and-mortar business in a rapidly evolving industry—while also showing up as a parent, partner, friend, and community leader. It’s a lot. So when I use the term “lazy” in reference to play café owners like myself, know that it’s entirely tongue-in-cheek. None of us would have made it through the business plan stage—let alone opening day—if we were truly lazy.

Instead, we’re relentlessly prioritizing. We’re focused on what matters most: the relationships that mean the world to us and the high-leverage tasks that actually move our businesses forward. And when it comes to the repetitive, mundane, or time-sucking responsibilities that quietly drain our energy? We’re choosing to work smarter—not harder.

That’s where AI comes in.

I’ll be honest: I’m wildly jealous of anyone starting or scaling a play café in this AI-powered era. When used correctly, AI can give you a serious advantage over your competition. But that’s a big caveat—when used correctly.

While I’ve already released a foundational training on using tools like ChatGPT in the day-to-day operations of a play café, it was recorded over a year ago—and a lot has changed. So in this article (based on the first episode of my two-part AI series on the Profitable Play Podcast), I’m sharing new, more advanced—but still simple—ways to use AI to save time, reduce stress, and grow your business.

Next week, I’ll dive deeper into how to use these tools strategically, and more importantly, authentically—because nothing turns off customers faster than a caption that reeks of unedited AI.

But for now, let’s jump into some of my favorite current AI use cases, time-saving hacks, and high-impact prompts that are helping play café owners like you streamline operations, grow smarter, and maybe even reclaim a little sanity along the way.

1. Create a Deep Cleaning Checklist Using Just Your Space Layout

Let’s start with one of my favorite hacks.

If you have a layout of your space—whether it’s a basic floor plan, a sketch from your architect, or even just a list of rooms—you can upload it to ChatGPT and ask it to create a customized deep cleaning checklist.

I obviously wasn’t able to do this for my business but I have done this for my home and let me tell you, the mental load this eradicates is worth it’s weight in gold.

So for your prompt here: Try,

“This is the layout of my play cafe. Can you generate a weekly deep cleaning checklist for each area, based on what typically needs to be maintained in a facility like this?”

ChatGPT will break it down by room—like bathrooms, cafe area, ball pit, party room—and even suggest frequency, safety tips, and materials needed.

You can take it to the next level by asking for opening, mid-shift, and closing checklists as well, and you can make sure ChatGPT is generating the most optimized list possible by adding things to your prompt like,

“Before you generate this list, ask me any questions you think will help”, or, you can say “here’s an example staff schedule. Please create the list around this type of staffing”.

From there, paste it into Canva, slap your logo on it, and boom— an official (and extremely effective) SOP ready for your staff binder.

I have dozens and dozens of SOP templates I give my Play Cafe Academy students but I recommend they still customize them using these tools. For example, if you are working from my or any SOP template for an espresso machine let’s say– you can upload it to ChatGPT and ask it to tweak it for YOUR specific model espresso machine.

And again the sky is the limit here– after these prompts, you can make checklists, create accountability sheets for people to initial, create order forms and a shopping schedule– ALL in minutes using AI.

2. Use ChatGPT to Write Job Descriptions, Interview Questions, and Training SOPs in One Shot

Something I hear from owners is that hiring can feel like a full-time job in itself—but it doesn’t have to be.

Instead of staring at a blank screen when writing a new job post, give ChatGPT some basic info like:

• The job title
• A short description of your business (OR do what I prefer and upload the link to your website)
• A few core responsibilities

And BOOM– a customized job post ready to plug into something like indeed.

So for your prompt here: Try,

“Write a detailed job description for a part-time barista at a play cafe that also includes customer check-ins, light cleaning, and prepping simple snacks.” Being sure to add any relevant information or links to help.

Then follow it up with:

“Now create a list of interview questions that will help me identify strong candidates for this position.”

And finally:

“Create a training checklist for new hires in this role.”

In less than 5 minutes, you’ve created your entire starting point for hiring and onboarding team members. Now of course, AI has flaws and you will need to tweak this as you go, but it can save you hours and HOURS at the beginning.

I recommend in PCA to create a training manual as well as a series of training videos– and AI can help with this as well. It can give you scripts for the videos or talking points if you prefer, and even transcribe them to make them more accessible by adding closed captions and transcriptions.

Again, the sky is the limit with this one. ChatGPT remembers your prompt history so you can come back later and generate staff check-in surveys, forms for inevitable mishaps and write-ups, draft policies and dress codes, and even write promotion letters or help you come up with some sort of incentive-based commission plan.

You can even use AI tools like ChatGPT or Shiftsmart to auto-generate team schedules based on availability, shift preferences, and labor budget—no more Excel headaches.

Managing your team is EXTREMELY time consuming, so I highly recommend leveraging AI whenever possible here, always reviewing what’s generated of course. 

3. Create Automated Birthday Party Responses & Upsells

You’re probably answering the same party booking questions over and over. So let AI do it for you.

Upload your current party packages and ask:

“Based on this pricing and these options, create a 3-email sequence for people who inquire about booking a birthday party. Include one email that explains the packages, one that handles common objections, and one that offers limited-time upgrades or bonuses.”

Now you’ve got a high-converting sequence you can plug into your CRM or email tool (even if it’s just Gmail templates).

Bonus idea: Have ChatGPT turn that into a script your team can use during phone calls or tours.

And to eventually build off of this one, you can always tweak that same sequence for your general email list to convert more casual play customers into party bookings. 

Email marketing, especially automated email sequences, are something a lot of owners have mental barriers around, so using AI to help break those down can be a super effective strategy.  

And whenever you’re having AI generate marketing copy– and I will talk more about this next week– try to upload some past email samples written in your brand voice so the tool can mirror that. There are more tips and tricks I have for this, but the takeaway is that we don’t want it to clearly SOUND like AI, because again, customers will sense that inauthenticity from a million miles away. Training ChatGPT in your brand voice is one of the most powerful ways to improve your AI usage as an owner.

4. Build a Strategic Content Calendar That Actually Converts

Instead of constantly trying to figure out what to post, ask ChatGPT:

“Create a 4-week content calendar for an indoor playground and cafe (post your link). Include a mix of Instagram Reels, educational posts for parents, behind-the-scenes content, testimonials, and calls to action for party bookings and memberships.”

Then follow up with:

“Add caption ideas, suggested hashtags, and tell me what kind of photo or video to use for each.”

If you want to level up, ask:

“Which of these content types typically drives the most traffic or sales for local service businesses?”

This gives you not just content—but strategic content aligned with growth. 

I know for me, coming up with topics is easy. It’s executing them that’s the issue. So you can use these prompts to generate video talking points, scripts, and even create training documentation so you can OFFLOAD this content creation and posting process to your team.

Most business owners are using AI for marketing and content creation. But you can STILL probably go deeper.

One of my favorite prompts to use here to get deeper, especially if I feel like the captions or strategy is stale or superficial, is, “if this was level 1 thinking, what would level 5 look like”? Or what would a level 5 strategy look like?

Or tweak that prompt around like, “if this strategy ranked 1 on the creativity scale, what would a 10 strategy look like?”

Prompts along those lines can really help take your AI marketing assistant to the next level and make anything generated NOT sound like a corny robot that just spits out emojis onto the screen.

5. Plan & Price a New Offer in 10 Minutes or Less

Thinking about running a new class, camp, or even adding a digital product—but unsure how to structure or price it?

Just say:

“I want to run a 5-day drop-off summer camp at my play cafe. Each session will be 3 hours long. Create a schedule, pricing model, list of needed materials, and marketing plan.”

ChatGPT can instantly suggest:

• Age ranges
  
  
• Sample daily themes
  
  
• Cost breakdowns per camper
  
  
• Profit margin analysis
  
  
• Discount strategies for siblings or early birds
  
  
• Instagram captions to fill those last few spots
  
  

No more waiting until 11pm to maybe start brainstorming. Or worse, procrastinating until it’s too late and now you’ve missed out on a major revenue opportunity. 

And what’s great about this is that again, you can train ChatGPT to KNOW your business inside and out, so whatever it suggests or creates will feel really custom-made for YOUR audience and consumers.

I have even taken a customer survey and uploaded the text responses in bulk into chatGPT and asked it to incorporate the feedback into future prompt responses. 

It’s basically like having a personal business consultant in your pocket.

6. Stop Guessing and Let ChatGPT Help You Set KPIs

You can’t grow what you don’t track—if you were at Play Maker Society live or you’re in my paid programs,-- you KNOW this is a favorite saying of mine. I am a HUGE proponent of tracking KPIs, or key performance indicators. 

But I also know most owners aren’t sitting around creating dashboards and spreadsheets for fun.

Ask ChatGPT:

“Based on my indoor playground business model, what are the most important KPIs I should track weekly if I want to increase revenue over the next 90 days?”

Then follow up with:

“Now, create a simple Scorecard template I can use in a Google Sheet to track these numbers.”

Include targets like:

• Birthday party inquiries/bookings
  
  
• Membership conversions
  
  
• Cost per event
  
  
• Cafe profit margin
  
  
• Average transaction value
  
  

You’ll know what’s working and where to push harder— without having to spend all your brainpower getting to that point.

In terms of further optimizing operations, you can also use ChatGPT to generate optimized cafe inventory orders based on sales trends (if you paste in weekly data) to improve your KPI’s.

One of my favorite tips to give owners is to paste in your POS data and ask ChatGPT which menu items or services have the highest margins—and which are underperforming. Many people have no idea which items are actually driving the most profit, which restricts their ability to set goals and empower their team to improve the bottom line going forward. Because we want them promoting the most impactful menu items, right?!

And let’s say one of your most important revenue streams is memberships, and your KPI is membership churn. You can use AI to predict churn by importing your membership data into a spreadsheet to identify cancellation risk factors and patterns. 

Again, there are NO excuses to not be an informed owner when it comes to your business data, even if your to-do list is ever growing. And if you need help with this, this is definitely going to be a topic again at this year’s Play Makers Live event.

7. Turn Your Best-Selling In-Person Experience Into a Digital Product

Passive income? In this economy? Yes, please.

If you have a popular class, event, or parent resource, ask ChatGPT:

“Help me turn my 6-week sensory class for toddlers into a digital download parents can use at home. Include lesson plans, materials lists, and printable instructions. Format it like an eBook.”

Or:

“Create a landing page copy for a new digital product that teaches parents how to create engaging toddler play setups at home.”

You now have a brand-new revenue stream that works 24/7—even when your doors are closed or your classes are filled up.

8. Empower Your Staff to Use AI Too

Here’s the real plot twist: You’re not the only one who can use AI.

Start training your team to use ChatGPT for:

• Writing snack menu descriptions
  
  
• Answering common parent questions via email or chat
  
  
• Creating fun names and descriptions for new drinks
  
  
• Planning social content from photos they already took
  
  
• Rewriting signage or policies in friendlier language
  
  

Prompt idea:

“Write a friendly but firm sign telling parents to supervise their children and clean up after themselves in the cafe.”

Let them handle the tasks they usually bug you about—and let ChatGPT take the mental load off everyone.

Here’s the deal:
You don’t have to be techy. You don’t have to be perfect.
And you definitely don’t have to do it all alone.

With just 20 minutes and a few smart prompts, you can automate your annoying tasks, launch new offers, train your team better, audit your business, and market more consistently—even if you're exhausted and overwhelmed.

So yes—maybe you’re “lazy’” when it comes to some tasks.
Or maybe you’re just smart enough to let AI do the heavy lifting while you focus on growing your business instead of surviving it.

If you want more prompts like this, be sure to check the show notes for my free AI training including some of my favorite ChatGPT use cases for indoor playground owners.

And if you’re inside Play Maker Society, keep your eyes peeled—I’ll be sharing bonus AI strategies in our next group call.

Until next time, work smarter, rest harder, and let AI be your assistant who never calls out sick.

For more indoor playground tips, recorded coaching calls with active owners, and guest experts--

🎧 Check out the Profitable Play Podcast here!

 🎥 Check out the Play Cafe Academy YouTube Channel here! 

 🔗 For all indoor playground business courses, free downloads, templates and toolkits, and everything you need to launch and operate your own successful and profitable indoor playground or play cafe business, visit our main website here!

💌 DON’T FORGET TO DOWNLOAD OUR FREE ONLINE GUIDE: What's Working In The Indoor Playground Industry in 2024-2025!