AI Conquered Coding. Fast Food Is Next
SoundHound AI
NVIDIA
Omilia
IBM
Google/DeepMind
Voice AI is increasingly taking orders at fast-food drive-thrus across the US, with chains like Taco Bell and Dairy Queen rolling it out widely. Despite early failures and public skepticism, the technology is improving and is now used at 6% of US locations, with high customer satisfaction but concerns about human connection.
Kristen Charpentier suspected she was talking to a robot at a Dairy Queen drive-thru because the voice was 'too nice.' The employee confirmed that AI had taken her order, making her one of thousands experiencing AI-voice drive-thrus. In 2024, 4% of US fast-food locations used voice AI in drive-thrus, growing to 5% last year and 6% now, according to Intouch Insight. Taco Bell announced AI at 890 drive-thru lanes (over 10% of its US locations), Dairy Queen is implementing it in 25 states, and 12% of White Castles use an AI named 'Julia' for ordering. Early attempts failed: McDonald's AI added 260 Chicken McNuggets to an order, and Del Taco rolled back its test, but many chains continued quietly expanding. Intouch Insight found AI drive-thrus are less friendly and have lower order accuracy, but they beat the industry average service time by 21 seconds. White Castle's CMO says Julia has won over employees, and employment numbers have stayed steady. AI agents upsell 71% of the time compared to the 58% industry average. Intouch Insight reported a 97% satisfaction rate for the technology, but some customers like Schereé Reed worry about losing human connection. Chains like Chick-fil-A, Dutch Bros, and 7Brew have avoided AI to maintain hospitality. The potential future includes multilingual ordering, customer recognition, and personalized suggestions, which some executives acknowledge might seem creepy.
Source: Wired AI —
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