AI Conquered Coding. Fast Food Is Next
Your next drive-thru order might be taken by a bot. And you might not even notice.
Get smart on it
Fast-food chains are increasingly deploying artificial intelligence voice systems to take orders at drive-thru windows, with adoption growing from 4 percent of US locations in 2024 to 6 percent currently. Early AI drive-thru systems faced significant problems including lower accuracy and friendliness than human workers, difficulty understanding accents and dialects, and viral social media videos of ordering failures, causing some chains to initially abandon the technology. However, after years of refinement, major chains have resumed expansion of AI ordering systems, citing improvements in speed and efficiency, though some customers express concerns about losing human connection and some chains continue to prioritize human workers as part of their brand identity.
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