We have seen AI take the world by a storm already in the new year. It’s to no one’s surprise that we finally see the emergence of AI in the fast food industry. Most everybody has been to a fast food restaurant before in their lives and seen how understaffed and overworked the employees are at these establishments. I once waited in line at a Mcdonalds at 11 pm for 40 minutes just to learn it was cash only, not my best moment. Several of your favorite fast food chain restaurants such as Wingstop, Chipotle, and Taco Bell are utilizing AI bots to take customer orders, rely on robotic fry cooks, and add mobile-order express lanes.
For the people who have anxiety while ordering food, this may be the news you’ve heard in a while. Mcdonalds in partnership with Presto plans to install the AI-based voice assistant in 267 restaurants. As of right now, only corporate owned restaurants will have the new technology. Presto is an automation company overlaying next-gen solutions onto the physical world. They have enterprise-grade voice, vision, and touch technology to help hospitality businesses. Presto’s AI voice assistant automates speech recognition in restaurants and can be used in drive-thrus, kiosks, pay-at-table systems and other places. Presto has an accuracy of over 95% and improves labor productivity by as much as three times.
An early bird to the game, Chipotle began testing AI-powered voice assistants for phone orders in early 2018. Working to also innovate their kitchen, the chain began testing Chippy, a tortilla chip-making robot by Miso Robotics. Checkers & Rally’s, working in collaboration also with Presto, became one of the first large restaurant companies to implement widespread use of AI-powered voice assistants. Out of the total 803 Checkers and Rally’s restaurants, voice AI is live in 280 of them. The list goes on for these chain restaurants as they begin their journey to bringing AI into their workplace.
There are several pros to companies beginning to automate their system to AI based bots. Throwing it back a couple years, the start of the pandemic led many individuals to start going to drive-thrus to order their food instead. Customers who feared being exposed felt much more comfortable talking to humans that weren’t physically in front of them. Due to large labor shortages everywhere, the productivity rate and customer experience hasn’t been up to par in recent years. In order to fix these issues, restaurants have been turning to AI to replace the need for human labor, increase productivity, and reduce human error. I believe this is a step in the right direction and will make my experience as a customer at one of these establishments more enjoyable overall.
As with anything new, there are cons associated with changing the old ways we do something. Some of these may include high costs for the technology, barriers to hearing impaired individuals, language barriers and the percentage of error for the voice automation assistant. In our case, America is a very diverse country with individuals who speak several different languages and may have an accent that the voice automation assistant doesn’t recognize. As they are still testing the AI based technology, I believe they will create solutions to fix these such as different language options or an option to type their order.
We have read in each other’s post about different ways AI has begun to take over different industries to fix everyday problems. The common saying goes “modern problems require modern solutions” said by yours truly, Dave Chappelle. AI is seemingly becoming the solution to most industry issues. As the technology is still relatively new, it will be interesting to see the differences it will make in the coming years.
Sources:
Wingstop, McDonald’s, Chipotle Add Tech, Robots, AI to Speed up Orders (businessinsider.com)
Will Artificial Intelligence Be Taking Your Next Drive-Thru Order? (forbes.com)
Hey Elaine, great post! While I do like the human interaction when ordering at a restaurant, I completely understand the need for AI in certain situations. Presto seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to the future of the fast-food industry and I think this will continue to grow. Fast food chains like Mcdonald’s don’t seem to be very pleasant interactions with slow wait times, inconsistent food, and sometimes customer service. I know most customers support first steps are always AI now that can recognize the problem you are having.
Hey Elaine, great post! I think AI would be a great addition to the fast food industry. As Connor mentioned above, a lot of fast food chains don’t have excellent customer service anyway, (excluding Chick-Fil-A), so having AI voice assistants there to take orders wouldn’t make me miss out on the customer experience. I think if it is increasing the efficiency of drive throughs and people getting there food inside during busy times, it would be a much more satisfying experience. I can’t help but think of some social concerns with this technology though. I completely understand that ordering in person can be difficult for people who struggle with anxiety, but should we be working towards the elimination of human interaction in something as common as the food industry?
Hi Elaine, I really enjoyed reading your post! Like many others, I enjoy talking to the workers at restaurants when placing an order. However, I do understand some people have anxiety when ordering like you said. I am very interested to see how large companies will adopt this tech development into their operations. I like how you mentioned some of the cons like errors with the voice automation assistant not being able to comprehend certain languages or accents as these are aspects of the technology that leave me with some doubt of its usability. It will be very interesting to see how this technology improves over the years and is adopted by more and more companies. Overall, great post!
Hi Elaine, love the anecdote! This is an extremely lucrative industry to automate, however, I am curious how much there is an incentive to, given that minimum wage is not that big of an expense for fast food companies.
I think this was a great post, you brought up great points towards the end, especially about accessibility issues of this technology, however, I don’t see how it is much different than a voice box with a person on the other side outside of accents. But you’re right, as this technology continues to develop, those modern problems will be solved with more modern solutions,
This is so neat! I can see how this industry is trending towards incorporating more technology to improve efficiencies and reduce the cost of labor. I will be interested to see how this will impact social norms within American culture? With so many things becoming automated I worry it will negatively impact the social skills in Americas youth. Really interesting post!
Hey, great post! It’s amazing to see how AI is making its way into the fast food industry. I think it’s a great idea for people who may have anxiety while ordering food. It’s cool to see that restaurants like Chipotle and Checkers & Rally’s are already using AI-powered voice assistants to help with phone orders and drive-thrus. However I do wonder if automation in a customer service industry might lead to decreased social interaction in America and i wonder about the negative impacts of that.
Hey Elaine! As a current part-time employee in the food industry I find this post to be very interesting! I work at Gusto in the Athens location and experience various technical aspects during my shifts. We use I Pads to take and hold orders and have screens displaying data on order completion and drive through times. In addition, we have sensors in drive through that send a beep to employees’ headsets when a vehicle is present. I believe adding an AI based voice assistant would drastically change the efficiency and workload for employees and customers of the food industry.
Hi Elaine! Great post. I relate to you waiting in line just to find out they are only taking cash, this happens in Athens ALLLL of the time! So annoying. I love the name of Chipotle’s AI tool, fits very well. I think all of these AI automation tools in the fast food industry could potentially change the game forever. But, as you said, I am wondering how exactly all of this will work due to all of the different languages, dialects, and accents in the United States. And, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the economy/politics space since there will be people that will not like that AI is taking over these “easy, lower-class” jobs. However, AI has disrupted so much already, so I have no doubt that it won’t continue!
Hey Elaine, I’m sure that almost every college student can relate to the frustration they face with McDonald’s. In fact, I’m surprised that the company did not act on this earlier when realizing that some of their stores were understaffed. Not only will this create a smooth and streamlined process but it’ll give Mcdonald’s a first-mover advantage as I am pretty sure they re the first in the industry to implement this type of technology.
Hey Elaine! This is such an interesting post to read about. I strongly believe that these AI tools will help fast food chains work way more efficiently in our everyday lives. I also 100% agree with the fact that I do hate waiting in long lines, and by the time it is my time to order, I am told that it is cash only. Happens to me so many times especially in athens!
Elaine, this was an excellent post. I can totally see myself in the near future ordering through an AI machine. The possibilities of completely automated fast food businesses are somewhat mind-boggling to me but alas it is the future. It is crazy to think my kids will be ordering food from restaurants with possibly only one worker there who is just trained in tech on how to mix machines.
Hey Elaine, you did a great job writing this blog post. I am very interested in this new company presto implementing their technology into so many fast food chains so quickly. I wonder how long it will be till we see other AI companies producing products similar to what presto is producing and how it will effect restaurants in the future.