American fast food chain Wendy’s introduces a ‘drive-thru’ system that takes orders with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. That is to scale back mistakes and increase speed, and doesn’t intend to scale back labor costs, he said.

Wendy’s announced on the tenth (local time) that it is going to pilot an AI solution called ‘Wendy’s Fresh AI’ in collaboration with Google Cloud.

To begin with, in June, at directly managed stores in Columbus, Ohio, USA, an AI chatbot kiosk that may talk with customers by voice, receive orders, and answer ceaselessly asked questions will probably be deployed.

Based on Google’s Large Language Model (LLM), the chatbot has a female voice and might understand requests that do not exactly match menus.

Wendy’s said that 75-80% of consumers prefer the drive-thru, and it could be difficult to order or make mistakes as a result of menu option selection, special requests, or ambient noise. Subsequently, using a chatbot can solve this problem and supply fast and accurate food, he added.

Regarding the incontrovertible fact that some indicate that it’s a method to scale back labor costs, “We don’t reduce the labor force, but we expect the effect of reducing the burden on employees to take orders and specializing in making food in step with the rise in drive-thru and online orders.” said.

Prior to this, Krishna Gupta, president of Presto, which runs an AI ordering platform for restaurants, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV last week that “in the following three years, all human drive-throughs will probably be gone.”

Reporter Kang Doo-won ainews@aitimes.com