The current count stands at nine national fast-food chains that have announced, piloted, or more widely implemented artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots in their drive-thru lines (Wendy’s, White Castle, Popeye’s, Hardee’s & Carl’s Jr., Checkers & Rally’s, Del Taco, Panera, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell). Some are testing the technology in just a few stores; others have begun massive rollouts, together with clearly outlined plans to transform all their restaurants. Their common goal, of course, is increasing efficiency. But will that efficiency come at the cost of customer satisfaction?

As restauranteurs and researchers well know, the bottleneck that consistently slows down every fast-food drive-thru is the order-taking process. Customers might not have made up their minds, employees might be busy performing other tasks, and the speaker systems, if not working properly, can make it difficult to get the order right. With effective, AI-enabled robots, those issues would be resolved. The robot can make recommendations about appealing menu items to help customers make decisions (and also encourage upsales of side dishes, drinks, and other items), remove the labor-intense burden of order taking away from human employees, and establish a clear and technology-enhanced communication channel.

The channel is not perfect though, and that might be the greatest barrier to AI order-takers thus far. Voice recognition and natural language processing remain difficult skills to integrate into robots. Even in ideal conditions, robots sometimes misunderstand emotional terms, shorthand, or accented speech. And drive-thrus are not ideal conditions. They feature substantial background noise, such as engine and traffic sounds or music playing loudly in the car. Many customers gather orders from multiple people in the car, whether their friends or children, which means the AI must be able to identify which voice is placing the order and which are kids in the back, pleading for an ice cream sundae.

Another issue surrounds the names that different restaurants use for their menu items. At Wendy’s, a milkshake is called a Frostie, so the AI needs to be programmed uniquely to understand what both terms, used variously by different customers, all mean the same thing, namely, that customers are seeking a frozen treat. The AI that supports McDonald’s drive-thrus needs to know what customers really want, whether they order a burger, hamburger, a cheeseburger, or a Big Mac; it cannot be programmed the same way to staff White Castle drive-thrus, where people might call for a pack of sliders.

Such shortcomings in turn might lead to inaccurate orders, a substantial source of frustration for customers who are explicitly visiting drive-thrus for the speed and convenience they offer. If they receive a ham biscuit at Hardee’s, instead of the hamburger they ordered, customers must take the time and effort to return and find an employee to fix the mistake. However, some planned AI strategies note that the goal is to have no human employees on site, to achieve the greatest cost benefits for the restaurant. In that case, mistakes would be particularly challenging to fix, and customer satisfaction would likely be at particular risk.

Still, an estimated 58 percent of fast-food restaurant operators indicate their plans to add more AI in the drive-thru. The justification comes from multiple directions, in that AI promises to cut their costs, help them overcome labor shortages, and increase the amount spent by each customer, because it can suggest appropriate additions and add-ons that reflect the massive data the automated systems can process. In a sense, it thus might not matter what customers prefer today. It looks like they need to get used to robot order takers, like it or not.

Discussion Questions:

1. What systems and safeguards could fast-food restaurants put in place to limit customers’ frustration in dealing with AI in the drive-thru and protect their satisfaction?
2. Should fast-food chains aim for completely robotic stores, or should they maintain some human staff members in each store?

 

Sources: Nancy Luna, “Another Robot Will Take Your Order Now. White Castle Joins 7 Other Fast-Food Restaurants Using AI at the Drive-Thru,” Business Insider, August 7, 2023; Angus Loten, “Wendy’s, Google Train Next-Generation Order Taker: An AI Chatbot,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2023; Danielle Wiener-Bronner, “AI Drive-Thrus May Be Good for Business. But Not for the Rest of Us,” CNN Business, June 19, 2023