For many customers, the technology remains unfamiliar. Kristen Charpentier realized something was different while ordering at a Dairy Queen drive-thru after noticing the unusually polished voice taking her order. "There was no communication delay or weirdness to it. It felt completely natural," Charpentier told WIRED. "But just a little too pleasant to be human." After asking an employee at the pickup window, she learned her order had been handled by an AI voice assistant rather than a person.
Restaurant operators have been pursuing AI ordering for years in an effort to speed service, improve order consistency, and increase sales through automated recommendations. Intouch Insight found that AI systems attempt suggestive selling on 71% of orders, compared with an industry average of 58% for human employees. The firm's research also found AI-equipped drive-thrus complete transactions an average of 21 seconds faster than the industry average and report a 97% customer satisfaction rate.
"The brands who have invested and who have been testing this heavily over the last three years—the technology has gotten to a point where they are ready to go," Sarah Beckett, vice president of sales and marketing at Intouch Insight, told WIRED. "They're going to start scaling this massively."
The industry's current momentum follows an earlier wave of setbacks. McDonald's entered the category in 2019 through its acquisition of AI startup Apprente before later selling McD Tech Labs to IBM and discontinuing the initial deployment. Del Taco also ended its AI drive-thru trial after the first generation of systems drew criticism for ordering mistakes and widely shared social media videos showing AI adding incorrect items or unusually large quantities to customer orders.
Michael Schatzberg, cofounder of Branded Hospitality, said early deployments often created more work for restaurants than they eliminated. "The restaurants ended up spending more time smoothing over the problem they created," Schatzberg said. "Everyone was like, 'This is the worst. Stop. Get the people back with the headsets.'"
Despite those early challenges, several chains continued refining the technology instead of abandoning it. White Castle has spent four years expanding its partnership with SoundHound AI, while Taco Bell built its system with Nvidia and Omilia. McDonald's has also returned to AI ordering this summer through a new partnership with Google at five U.S. locations supporting both English and Spanish.
Schatzberg believes the technology has matured enough for a second attempt. "Companies have evolved, technology has evolved, and they're like—we can fix a lot of those problems," he said.
White Castle Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Richardson said the company's AI ordering system has improved steadily since launch and now helps stores operate more efficiently. "It wasn't bad at the start," Richardson said. "It's gotten so much better as time has gone on."
According to Richardson, customers can request a human employee at any point during the ordering process, while the company says its overall employment has remained stable throughout the AI rollout. Taco Bell has also said restaurants using voice AI report higher employee retention rates.
Not every restaurant chain is embracing automated ordering. Chick-fil-A, which consistently ranks highly for customer service in Intouch Insight's surveys, has not indicated plans to replace drive-thru staff with AI. Coffee chains Dutch Bros and 7Brew have similarly prioritized human interaction.
"Every brand has to make choices that fit its business," 7Brew Chief Marketing Officer Nick Chavez told WIRED. "For us, hospitality starts with genuine human connection, and that's something our guests consistently tell us they value."
Some customers also remain hesitant. Schereé Reed said he expected a person to take over after hearing an automated voice while ordering at a Wendy's drive-thru and worries that increased reliance on AI could reduce opportunities for human interaction. "I worry a lot about the ways that relying more and more on AI actually removes us from our human connections, like our ability to make community," Reed told WIRED.
Restaurant operators, meanwhile, continue exploring additional capabilities for AI ordering systems, including multilingual support and more personalized recommendations. Richardson said those possibilities require careful implementation. "We never want to seem creepy," he said.
While customer opinions remain mixed, Charpentier said her experience left her optimistic about the technology. "I think it's a great thing," she said. "There's room for human error, and I'm sure there's going to be room for AI error. But I think, as we've all seen with the advent of AI, there is more consistency with AI than there is in humans."
This analysis is based on reporting from Wired.
Image courtesy of Taco Bell.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
