For better or for worse, AI has found its way into various labor markets, and the fast food restaurant industry is definitely one of them. Joining seven other national fast food chains, White Castle is the most recent addition to the growing list of fast food chains implementing AI drive-thru lanes.
As the restaurant industry continues to face challenges in staffing shortages and high turnover rates, the usage of automated technology has only continued growing in nationwide popularity. With the help of AI, the accuracy and speed of restaurant orders can be improved and less room is left for human error, making restaurant service more consistent and predictable. In addition to decreasing space for human interaction, conversational AI bots at restaurant chains like Del Taco "greeted guests, reliably accepted their orders, and consistently offered upsell suggestions."
Some other restaurants using AI in their drive-thru services include McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Panera Bread, and Popeyes. Although McDonald’s AI-powered drive-thrus have become the butt of many jokes on TikTok for their service that leaves much to be desired, some restaurants have experienced large success working with AI, as the drink sales at Popeyes have increased thanks to the AI automatically upselling high-margin menu items like sodas, sides, and desserts.
With AI in fast food drive-thru lanes, customers can expect AI voice bots to take their orders rather than humans so that they won’t have to repeat themselves or receive the wrong order. Wendy’s chatbot is capable of conversing with customers, answering questions, and sending customers’ orders to the kitchen to be made. By having robots take drive-thru orders instead, the slowest and most frustrating part of the ordering process at drive-thrus are hopefully no longer issues.
White Castle announced its partnership with voice technology firm SoundHound on August 2. The fast food chain has been experimenting with AI-powered drive-thru services since 2020, eventually replacing drive-thru lanes with robotized voices and services. Unlike many other restaurants’ AI technology, SoundHound’s technology is based on complete end-to-end AI and is not a human-assisted system. This means that the technology relies entirely upon intelligent automation without any human intervention within the process.
Based on years of proven results during their partnership, White Castle and SoundHound have achieved highly desirable results when introducing AI into drive-thru lanes. Some of the highlights include 90% order completion rates, which exceed previous human staff-based benchmarks, just 60 seconds being the average time for an order to be taken and processed, plus highly consistent, reliable, and “always on” performance.
White Castle plans to implement SoundHound’s voice bots to 100 of its drive-thru locations by the end of 2024, and many of those locations will be running 24/7.
“White Castle is committed to investing in the best available technology to create welcoming and enjoyable drive-thru experiences for our customers,” stated Mike Guinan, Vice President, Operations Services for White Castle. “Our partnership with SoundHound has allowed us to be first movers in this space and we’re excited to do even more to satisfy cravers everywhere. Working together, we’ll be able to deliver the drive-thru experience of tomorrow today.”