Taco Bell will add voice AI ordering to hundreds of drive-thrus this year

Next time you’re craving a supreme sloop, maybe you’re not ordering it from a person. Taco Bell is Expanding its program to use AI voice recognition in drive-thrus. After testing the technology in more than 100 locations across 13 states, the fast food chain’s parent company plans to add voice-powered AI capabilities to hundreds of other Taco Bell drive-thrus across the U.S. by the end of the year.

“With more than two years of tuning and testing Voice AI drive-thru technology, we are confident in its effectiveness in optimizing operations and increasing customer satisfaction,” said Lawrence Kim, chief innovation officer at Yum! Brands. The company also owns KFC and is currently testing Voice AI at five KFC locations in Australia.

It sounds a little silly, but in practice, this is an application of AI that people who are not early adopters can find in the wild. There are many flashy headlines about chatbots that look like celebrities, but this kind of practical use case shows where and how voice AI can appear in a person’s routine and workplace. The press release centers the employee experience as one of the reasons to pursue technology. “Leveraging AI gives us the ability to lighten the workload of team members, freeing them to focus on the hospitality of service. It also allows us to unlock new and meaningful ways to interact with our customers,” said Taco Bell Chief Digital & Technology Officer Dane Mathews said.

That’s the positive side. On the negative side, there are still many imperfections to be resolved in the technology. McDonald’s undertook a similar effort exploring AI-powered drive-thrus, but canceled your program earlier this summer. Customers had equal parts encounters frustrating and hilarious with AI ordering options during the testing phase. There is also concern that if problems in these AI systems are resolved, the easing of team member workloads could result in some team members losing their jobs.