AI Phone Hosts Become Increasing Part of Dining Experience

The Go Mobile restaurant model, for example, first introduced in 2021, eliminates indoor dining space to address drive-through bottlenecks. This concept features a dedicated parking area for mobile and delivery orders, an outdoor pick-up window, and grab-and-go shelves. Innovations in POS technology have paved the way for sophisticated loyalty programs and gift card solutions that cater to the individual preferences of customers. Digital gift cards in particular have become a go-to payment solution within these loyalty platforms, thanks to the convenience of automatic reloads and top-ups. The introduction of these digital gift cards and loyalty points has not only simplified the process of reward redemption, but also provided restaurants with valuable data to further refine their customer engagement strategies in the future.

Miami-based Xina is a startup offering a voice ordering chatbot tailored for restaurants and hotels. At the show, the company demonstrated its voice bot for both kiosk and phone ordering. For kiosk interactions, a consumer taps a button on the screen to engage the chatbot and then converses with it. Izabela Nad, director of operations, said operators are primarily interested in the phone order bot system, as it relieves staff from this task. She added that the software is compatible with restaurant drive-thru systems. The company is seeing demand in California, where the minimum wage for fast food workers recently jumped 25 percent to $20 an hour.

Only 19 percent of the consumers surveyed have experienced this technology while placing their orders, and as highlighted by the McDonald’s case, this technology is still very much in the testing phase. When asked how consumers felt about AI-enabled voice technology to automate drive-thru order-taking, 45 percent of respondents reported “not liking the idea of it.” Intouch Insight recently surveyed more than 1,480 North American consumers to understand their views on restaurant technology, including voice and video AI tech in drive-thru. The findings suggest that consumers are gradually accepting interactions with AI, but its success depends on proper implementation and adoption.

The deal made SoundHound AI one of the country’s leading providers of voice AI for restaurants. Aniai’s Alpha Grill was a recipient of the show’s famed Kitchen Innovations award last year. The semi-autonomous burger grill simultaneously cooks both sides of a hamburger patty. The South Korean company Aniai returned to the show this year and nabbed another kitchen innovation award for its use of advanced AI and robotics.

This cutting-edge solution operates independently during the initial order process, only transferring control to human staff when encountering complex orders. This approach significantly reduces delays, minimizes guest frustration, and decreases the need for staff intervention. As the system learns from more complete AI sessions, it continuously improves, leading to a more consistent and efficient ordering experience over time. Restaurants can quickly configure the platform to align with their brand voice and preferred customer journey. Notably, Slang.ai’s advanced AI can comprehend various accents and engage callers of all ages, ensuring a seamless and satisfying experience for every customer.

A significant change is the use of POS data to analyze and predict customer preferences, for example, allowing restaurants to offer personalized services. When AI is integrated into inventory-ordering operations, the technology could predict what customers will be ordering, said Barton. That allows restaurants to plan ahead better through more complex algorithms beyond using simply ordering based on the average of what people purchased over the past seven Fridays, he said. That technology, said Bellettini, helps restaurant operators ensure that food is always prepared to standard across all locations as they hire and train new employees. Voice AI technology can help restaurants solve labor shortage issues, Bellettini said.

Serving a diverse clientele including restaurants of all sizes, caterers, dining management companies, and even bookkeepers and accountants, xtraCHEF offers a user-friendly interface coupled with powerful features. This combination allows businesses to streamline their operations, reduce costs, and maximize margins effectively. By automating time-consuming tasks and providing real-time insights, xtraCHEF enables restaurant professionals to focus more on delivering exceptional dining experiences and less on manual administrative work. To date, one of AI’s most significant contributions to the restaurant industry is its ability to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. From automated drive-thru ordering systems to predictive inventory management, AI-driven solutions optimize a restaurant’s workflow, reducing wait times and increasing productivity.

AI as Service in Restaurants: Delivering Smarter Solutions

A study by McKinsey suggests that AI can reduce forecasting errors by up to 50%, significantly improving inventory management and reducing overstock and stockouts. To meet strategic goals, support franchisees, and enhance the guest experience in restaurant. To get to that level of personalization, data science and Big Data are essential to crafting digital services that truly help individuals and consumers — and businesses looking for those customers — find one another seamlessly. While the path forward for AI in fast-food drive-thrus may still have challenges, it also offers immense potential for innovation and improved customer service.

Now, the focus is on maximizing labor and reallocating workers to hospitality-focused activities rather than on mundane tasks. Restaurants can implement AI-driven voice ordering to handle the drive-thru, allowing them to make the best use of labor. The rise of the AI-powered ChatGPT restaurant is leading to improved service quality. It makes dining experiences faster, more accurate, and highly personalized for clients. Presto Voice with Pure AI takes automation to the next level by offering a fully autonomous Voice AI ordering experience.

The company also offers things like mobile ordering and in-store kiosks and has tested drone deliveries, kitchen robots, and weird AI hiring tools. Payment card fraud led to $33 billion in losses worldwide in 2022, with $13.6 billion of those losses occurring in the United States. AI technology can help restaurants protect themselves and their customers from financial losses stemming from card-related fraud. When it comes to food waste, it has been a long-standing global issue for years. Commercial food waste is a significant global issue, impacting both the environment and economic efficiency.

AI voice ordering systems and other AI technologies will be part of the future of restaurants. As demographic preferences evolve, brands must adopt a strategic approach to successfully integrate these innovations and deliver enjoyable experiences. However, the recent pivot by McDonald’s to remove AI voice-ordering systems from over 100 drive-thrus has sparked broader discussions about AI’s role in the fast food industry and its acceptance among consumers. In terms of the front-of-house experience, you see opportunity for technology to create automation in workflows but also create personalization. Restaurants might do happy hour, but you could do more data-driven strategies to drive more demand. To streamline digital order pickup, Wendy’s is piloting Pipedream’s underground autonomous robot system.

Integrating Deepfake Videos Into The Dining Experience

While AI streamlines processes, it should never overshadow the human touch when it comes to showcasing culture. Technology can lay the groundwork, but human intervention adds authenticity. Restaurants are more than just places to work; they’re hubs of culture, camaraderie, ChatGPT App and culinary excellence. It’s essential to convey this uniqueness in job ads and throughout the recruitment process. On the compliance side, the genAI assistant can instantly deliver answers to compliance questions, guiding actions and reducing the risk of error.

Because this task is such a time sink, many restaurants conduct quarterly statement audits, leaving money-saving opportunities unidentified for months on end. One of the best use cases of AI in the restaurant industry relates to the real-time data and insights surfaced by the technology which can help restauranteurs make more informed decisions. In my opinion, adoption of AI will have major contribution to larger hoteliers working on franchise model and it will be very effective in inventory management. Future – Predictive analytics algorithms could be used to predict future trends and events which, in turn, will help the restaurants to forecast the future inventory needs.

The kiosks then make personalized food recommendations to consumers, factoring in everything from the time of day, weather and ordering patterns in the region or at the specific restaurant that day, said Barton. Drive-thrus can operate faster with AI, Bellettini said, because the tech can instantly engage with the customer as they pull up to the speaker post, compared to an employee, who often takes about 30 seconds to engage. “Nobody really has deployed voice AI at scale yet and there still needs to be some human interaction to ensure that [the technology is] getting the order correct,” he said. Bite’s kiosks don’t include drive-thru voice ordering, but Barton said it can sometimes be difficult for such AI technology to recognize an order when a loud truck drives by, or when someone has a certain regional accent. White Castle began piloting voice AI at the drive-thrus of select -restaurants last year, and the application is “getting better all the time,” Richardson said. But adopting AI requires “patience and perseverance — and a focus on remembering the larger goal you are trying to achieve,” he wrote in an email.

Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit

Labor advocates have raised concerns about potential job displacement, and even industry leaders acknowledge the need for careful implementation. Despite these concerns, Yum!. Brands remains committed to its “AI-first mentality,” with AI already playing a role in its restaurant management SuperApp. The company is also testing AI technology in five KFC locations in Australia, demonstrating a broader commitment to exploring AI’s potential across its portfolio of brands. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. The adoption of omnichannel POS platforms has transformed how restaurants operate. Instead of just handling transactions, these systems now play a crucial role in strategic decision-making and customer interaction.

Advanced AI solutions can now accurately understand and process customer orders through voice recognition, seamlessly integrating with the restaurant’s point of sale (POS) or kitchen display system (KDS). Granted, each restaurant must train and retrain the AI model to recognize its menu items accurately. However, systems can escalate to an employee if orders are unclear to ensure customers get exactly what they want. It shapes the future of restaurants with more intelligent, data-driven solutions.

When a restaurant fulfills compliance requirements, diners can rest assured that their meals were prepared in a safe, healthy environment – and they’ll likely have better interactions with staff to boot. Happy employees really do make for happy customers, and a compliant workplace will undoubtedly be a more positive one. With expert systems AI present in the WFM platform, managers can automatically generate schedules that balance employees’ needs and incorporate complex compliance parameters.

Restaurants are using AI to personalize marketing

AI is also useful in analyzing large swaths of data, he added, which in turn can synthesize thousands of reviews, for example, and improve analytics functions. When diving deeper into the demographics, again, we see the generational gap in AI acceptance, with 32 percent of respondents aged reporting “not liking the idea of it,” compared to 49 percent of those aged 45 and above. The data showed that 42 percent of respondents said they “do not like the idea of it,” down just 2 percentage points from last year. McDonald’s gave no public reason for ending its test run, according to Restaurant Business, telling franchises that it would shut down the technology on 26 July. By subscribing to this newsletter, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. An interactive tabletop powered by artificial intelligence and equipped with sensors to differentiate between things elevates this immersive arrangement to new heights.

The most efficient way to automate compliance is through an AI-driven WFM platform, which serves as the nexus for staffing, scheduling, payroll, and other key operations functions influenced by labor laws. Restaurants should adopt WFM technology with AI at the core to maximize the potential for automation. This new function highlights how essential it is that business owners keep their information updated on Google and other sites so that they can be discovered by searchers for the right terms. If your offerings, opening times or locations are inaccurate, Google’s new features could mean you lose search visibility with people whose specific search queries suggest they’re highly likely to become customers.

While these fees can be a growth inhibitor for restaurants, AI technology can optimize payment processing to help restaurants increase profitability, and drive growth. Again, at this point the Angus Steakhouse hype doesn’t appear to have made it into AI Overview. This is also far from the first time chatbot for restaurants that online users, including on platforms outside of Reddit, have publicly declared plans to make inaccurate or misleading posts in an effort to thwart AI scrapers. Taco Bell’s AI drive-thru rollout comes amidst growing skepticism surrounding the rapid integration of AI into various sectors.

Morgan Stanley rolls out OpenAI tools on Wall Street

The Pareto Principle, which emphasizes the frequency of an 80/20 distribution, shows that 80% of a company’s profits come from just 20% of its guests. According to Bain & Company research, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by up to 75%. AI is arguably the hottest technology in the restaurant space, with many operators exploring applications to ease pressure from inflation and rising labor, food, and occupancy costs. The company also gives its restaurant customers flexible funding options to help smaller independent eateries tap into the capital they need to grow. “We’ll predict how much consumer volume we think we can drive into a restaurant, and we’ll pay the restaurant a portion of that volume upfront,” Roedding said, that predictive effort is aided by real-time modeling.

• While Yum! Brands has not disclosed its technology partners in this endeavor, they have emphasized the system’s ability to comprehend diverse pronunciations of menu items, a direct response to past criticisms of similar technologies.
• The $13 billion company makes software that acts as a kind of operating system for those businesses.
• The rise of the AI-powered restaurant is leading to improved service quality.
• John Dittig joined MicroTouch in January 2024 as the Global Vice President with a focus on Business Development and Partnerships.
• Interviews, conversations, and building rapport are essential for assessing intangible qualities like passion, motivation, and alignment with the restaurant’s values.
• The platform’s AI-driven features automate various aspects of restaurant operations, from creating personalized marketing content to managing customer calls and delivering in-depth analytics.

They aim to improve efficiency, enhance customer service, and reduce operational costs. XtraCHEF is a comprehensive, cloud-based restaurant management platform designed to empower finance and operations teams in the foodservice industry. By digitizing invoices and automating manual processes, xtraCHEF unlocks valuable data and insights that drive informed decision-making across various aspects of restaurant management. From recipe and inventory management to strategic purchasing and vendor negotiations, the platform provides a holistic solution for optimizing restaurant operations.

This shared vision, coupled with their complementary technological capabilities, forms the basis for the acquisition. Apparently, some London residents are getting fed up with social media influencers whose reviews make long lines of tourists at their favorite restaurants, sometimes just for the likes. Christian Calgie, a reporter for London-based news publication Daily Express, pointed out this trend on X yesterday, noting the boom of Redditors referring people to Angus Steakhouse, a chain restaurant, to combat it.

Embracing these technological innovations can help restaurants not only stay competitive but also thrive in a rapidly evolving market. AUTHOR BIO

Steve is the President, Co-founder, and a Director of Toast, where he leads product and innovation initiatives. Prior to Toast, he was involved in a number of entrepreneurial endeavors, including competing with Facebook while it was still a project out of a Harvard dorm room, and being an early pioneer in iPhone app development. He was also an “intrapreneur” at Endeca, helping to lead the Special Operations team that was instrumental in launching Endeca’s business intelligence platform and founding the Endeca mobile commerce business.

Encounter AI’s “Mai” is a sophisticated artificial intelligence assistant tailored for the restaurant and retail sectors. This cloud-based solution is designed to enhance accuracy, service, and speed by responding instantly to customers through various channels, including drive-thru, kiosk, and at-table tablets. By automating these interactions, Mai allows staff to focus on higher-value tasks, optimizing resource allocation and driving profitability. AI also empowers restaurants to deliver tailored experiences that resonate with the consumer.

To date, over 10,000 restaurants in the U.S. use SoundHound’s voice AI technology, including White Castle and Jersey Mike’s, said Bellettini. Employee intervention is needed about 5% to 10% of the time when SoundHound’s voice AI is used during customer orders, said Bellittini. White Castle Vice President Jamie Richardson, for example, said the technology holds “unlimited” potential to improve operations, as well as employee and guest experience. McDonald’s recent decision to make a change in its AI drive-thru voice-ordering system highlights the importance of carefully measuring the impact of new technologies on key performance indicators, whether in operations or customer satisfaction. Offering customers the choice to opt in or opt out of AI-driven services can also help bridge the comfort gap, allowing consumers to experience AI at their own pace. The data showed that the adoption of AI-enabled voice technology in drive-thru order-taking is still relatively low.

Throughout his career, he has worked in technology leadership roles at several restaurant operators, including Sonic Drive-In, Yum Brands, and Church’s Chicken. One of VOICEplug AI’s key strengths is its ability to handle natural language ordering, allowing customers to place orders using conversational language across multiple channels. This creates a more intuitive and user-friendly ordering experience, regardless of whether the customer is using a phone, web interface, mobile app, drive-thru, or kiosk system. Additionally, the platform’s 24/7 availability ensures that customer inquiries and orders are managed round the clock, minimizing missed opportunities and enhancing overall customer service. Beyond its response generation capabilities, MARA AI offers comprehensive review analytics.

Amid rising labor costs and high inflation, there is a clear and increasing demand for technologies that both replace and augment labor while offering seamless convenience for today’s digitally savvy consumer. Central to Krasota’s innovative approach is its use of AI and deepfake technology to create lifelike videos of legendary Chef Paul Bocuse, who passed away in 2018. These videos feature Bocuse discussing and explaining the intricate details of the dishes served.

We’re keeping an eye on all kinds of use cases out there to understand if there’s anything that we might be able to uncover that we’re not already thinking about. As we reflect on what’s happening in the competitive space, I would say we feel more and more bullish on our approach with the technology that we’ve developed and also with the partner that we have in Google Cloud. McDonald’s decision to end the pilot comes as restaurant chains have been rushing to embrace AI amid the promise of faster workflows and lower labour costs.

Google will also be using AI to help people make personalized plans which can be arranged within Google search results and then exported to docs of Gmail. Searching “create a 3 day meal plan for a group that’s easy to prepare,” will present you with multiple recipes that can be rearranged and switched out to suit your tastes. The AI models also had to be nimble enough to handle the complexity of Wendy’s customizable menu, limited-time offers, and other menu changes, and mismatches between what a customer may say and the Wendy’s branding.

Through machine learning algorithms, a set of rules or processes used by an AI system to conduct tasks, restaurants can analyze customer data, including past orders, dietary restrictions and feedback, to curate personalized recommendations and promotions. This customized approach fosters deeper consumer connections to the brand, enhances loyalty and can drive repeat visits. ’s Next-Generation Cloud First POS System—a technological innovation that enhances operational efficiency and empowers employees. Also enhancing operational efficiency is Taco Bell’s Touch Kitchen Display System (Touch KDS), a technology that streamlines order prioritization and enhances accuracy. The technology has been rolled out to most of the company’s restaurant locations.

As AI continues to evolve, its integration into the restaurant industry will undoubtedly usher in a new era of efficiency, innovation and data-informed decision-making. It can be a powerful tool for optimizing menu pricing by analyzing a vast amount of data, including historical sales, customer preferences, competitor pricing and market trends, to provide valuable insights into optimal pricing strategies. AI-driven systems can adjust pricing in real-time based on various factors such as demand, time of day, day of week and even weather conditions. It’s too early to understand how customers will react to dynamic pricing at restaurants but, at a minimum, AI can make those pricing decisions easier. Last month, Bojangles, the popular Southern cuisine fast-food chain, reported that it is expanding its deployment of a drive-thru voice AI technology.

As the report noted, there are many companies specializing in the service, offering 24-hour responses to questions about things like menus, dress codes and seating arrangements, or making, changing, or canceling reservations. AI won’t replace the human touch in hospitality, said Tucker, but it will automate recurring tasks like determining when to reorder inventory based on ingredients used in dishes sold during the past week. Restaurants will also soon start leaning heavily on AI to analyze guest data to help them forecast demand, predicts Matt Tucker, head of reservation management software firm Tock. AI helps the software layer of Bite’s kiosks to identify repeat customers and loyalty members when they enter their phone number or, when they opt in, to be recognized through facial recognition biometrics, said Barton. He predicts voice AI will be implemented at scale at the drive-thru over the next couple of years. Since its implementation, Julia has helped White Castle’s team members engage with customers and invest more of their time in ensuring order accuracy and fostering a friendly environment.

I wouldn’t say it’s quite like having a data scientist on staff, but you start to see early signals. In a city as vibrant and fast-paced as Macau, the hungry need not look far to find a fine dining institution worthy of a visit. The city’s leading restaurants are known for their high quality produce and innovative twists on classic cuisines.