The fast food industry has always been known for quick and convenient service. In the past few years, however, several popular fast-food chains have turned to AI in hopes of improving operational efficiency and increasing customer experience.
As we sit down to publish this piece, we see that fast food chains are already using AI for various industry applications, from McDonald’s AI-powered touchscreen ordering kiosks to Starbucks’ Deep Brew program, which provides in-depth inventory management.
Still, no fast food chain has cracked the code for AI in the drive-thru, though some are trying their luck with recent test runs and pilot programs.
The question is, does AI have the potential to revolutionize the fast food drive-thru experience, or is this just another technological fad?
Current Challenges in Traditional Fast Food Drive-Thrus
Traditional drive-thrus have long relied on a manual order-taking process. Customers pull up and speak their orders into an intercom system, which relays the order to an employee inside the restaurant, who manually enters it into a POS system.
Though the process itself is pretty straightforward, the manual aspect leaves it open to human error.
With traditional drive-thrus, fast food chains run the rest of miscommunication between customers and staff, which can lead to wrong orders, long wait times, and bottlenecks during peak hours.
Even if an employee gets an order right, manually entering items into a POS system is an inherently slower process than one that’s automated.
Major fast-food chains are beginning to recognize these inefficiencies as they become more aware of the potential for a modern solution. Enter the AI-powered drive-thru.
AI-Powered Order Taking
This past month, Yum! Brands Inc., the parent company of Taco Bell and KFC, announced that it would begin expanding its voice AI technology to hundreds of drive-thru locations across the United States.
With natural language processing, improved order accuracy, and the ability to handle large, complex orders with greater efficiency, spokespeople from Yum! Brands Inc. says that this implementation could eventually become a core strategy at a majority of their locations.
A popular Southern cuisine fast food chain called Bojangles also recently expanded its deployment of drive-thru AI technology following a successful pilot program launch. The company says the technology was made to alleviate the workload on employees, allowing them to focus on customer engagement and food quality.
According to Bojangles, “Bo-Linda,” as they so affectionately call their AI voice, has a 95% accuracy rate. Unlike a human employee, Bo-Linda can handle multiple orders simultaneously, offering better traffic management during the busiest times of the day.
How AI Can Benefit the Fast Food Drive-Thru Experience
Beyond reducing human error and streamlining the ordering process, the potential benefits of this major technological leap are vast.
For starters, these AI systems are trained to accurately capture and interpret orders, regardless of accent, language, dialect, and background noise, thanks to their natural language processing capabilities. And, as with all AI systems, the more they work, the more they learn, and the less likelihood you have of errors each day.
Secondly, AI systems are made to store data, allowing them to make menu recommendations based on the time of day or a customer’s previous order. On the restaurant side, this can equate to additional sales, especially in the form of upselling.
Furthermore, this data collection can enhance customer relationship management. Many restaurants already use powerful AI tools to analyze customer data for more personalized offers and deeply tailored marketing strategies. In fact, Domino’s Pizza has been using AI for quite some time, not just to make pizzas faster but also to track customers’ preferences so they can suggest orders and improve the overall delivery experience.
However, these examples don’t necessarily mean that AI will solidify its place anytime soon.
The McDonald’s AI Blunder
One of the great public failures we witnessed in the ResTech industry recently was McDonald’s declaring it would no longer partner with IBM for its AI drive-thru feature just a few years after its introduction.
In 2021, McDonald’s teamed up with Tech Giant IBM to test an AI drive-thru system for 100 select locations. Unfortunately, even with several years of training and millions of dollars in investments, the system seemed unable to perform the core task it was needed for—taking accurate orders.
You may have seen one of the many viral videos exposing this system, from suggesting odd food pairings to requesting orders from the wrong vehicles. In the end, McDonald’s recognized that these order processing failures resulted in such expensive inaccuracies and customer dissatisfaction that they outweighed the benefits of labor savings and ordering efficiency.
Plus, many customers weren’t too keen on speaking with an almost-but-not-quite ‘human’ voice on the other end of the intercom.
The Future of AI In Drive-Thrus
Now, even though McDonald’s pulled the plug on its heavily publicized AI system, spokespeople from the company have noted that they are confident in some sort of voice-ordering solution being part of the long-term goal.
With several other chains making big moves to integrate AI and the potential of cutting billions in labor costs, the stakes are quite high.
What we do know, however, is that the next wave of AI adoption in the food and beverage industry is well underway.
The Role of Industry Leaders Like EMERGING
As the fast food industry continues to grapple with AI drive-thru integration, we here at EMERGING are at the forefront of this technological shift. As a leading growth equity firm for ResTech, our mission is to guide these advancements and help restaurant owners understand the benefits of AI and data science to drive the bottom line.
Through automation and innovative tech solutions, EMERGING hopes to drive the next wave of AI adoption in the fast food sector, achieving greater operational efficiency, better customer experiences, and, ultimately, higher returns.
