[The fast-food chain Wendy’s plans to replace human order-takers for its drive-through service with a more efficient AI chatbot, creating a medium-as-social-actor presence illusion in which “You won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee.” Most of the press coverage draws on this story from The Wall Street Journal. Fortune adds these details:
“Opinions on what AI will mean for workers and companies vary greatly, from massive disruption to marginal change. In the view of Presto Automation, which offers an AI ordering platform for restaurants, the technology will shake up the industry. ‘I don’t think in three years, there’s going to be a drive-thru having a human take your orders,’ Krishna Gupta, Presto’s chairman and interim chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Television last week. […]
At the test location, a restaurant employee will monitor the drive-thru to make sure the AI can address all requests and be there in case a customer asks to speak with a human, according to Wendy’s Chief Information Officer Kevin Vasconi. The chatbot will have a female voice and be able to understand requested items that aren’t phrased exactly as they appear on the menu. It will know that a ‘large milkshake’ corresponds to the chain’s ‘large Frosty,’ Vasconi said. After the AI confirms the order on a screen customers can see, a ticket will make its way to the kitchen — just the same as when an employee talks to diners.
Wendy’s doesn’t expect the chatbot to be perfect. Its order accuracy in 2022 was 79%, according to Intouch Insight. The chain’s initial goal for the AI is to boost that past 85%, which would put it on par with competitors.”
See also the press release from Google. –Matthew]
[Image: Source: Tasting Table]
Wendy’s, Google Train Next-Generation Order Taker: an AI Chatbot
The fast-food chain has customized a language model with terms like ‘JBC’ for junior bacon cheeseburger and ‘biggie bags’ for meal combos
By Angus Loten
May 9, 2023
Wendy’s is automating its drive-through service using an artificial-intelligence chatbot powered by natural-language software developed by Google and trained to understand the myriad ways customers order off the menu.
With the move, Wendy’s is joining an expanding group of companies that are leaning on generative AI for growth.
The Dublin, Ohio-based fast-food chain’s chatbot will be officially rolled out in June at a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, Wendy’s said. The goal is to streamline the ordering process and prevent long lines in the drive-through lanes from turning customers away, said Wendy’s Chief Executive Todd Penegor.
Wendy’s didn’t disclose the cost of the initiative beyond saying the company has been working with Google in areas like data analytics, machine learning and cloud tools since 2021.
“It will be very conversational,” Mr. Penegor said about the new artificial intelligence-powered chatbots. “You won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee,” he said.
To do that, Wendy’s software engineers have been working with Google to build and fine-tune a generative AI application on top of Google’s own large language model, or LLM—a vast algorithmic software tool loaded with words, phrases and popular expressions in different dialects and accents and designed to recognize and mimic the syntax and semantics of human speech.
Generative AI tools are designed to generate natural-language responses, images or computer code from user text prompts.
Wendy’s customized language model includes unique terms, phrases and acronyms customers have come to use when ordering its burgers, fries and other items—such as “JBC” for junior bacon cheeseburger, or “biggie bags” for various combinations of burgers, chicken nuggets and soft drinks. Adding to the complexity, Wendy’s milkshakes are called Frosties, though customers may not always use the branded term.
“You may think driving by and speaking into a drive-through is an easy problem for AI, but it’s actually one of the hardest,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, the company’s cloud-computing division.
Among other challenges, Mr. Kurian said, there can be a lot of extraneous noise in a family car, such as music or children in the back seat. The software has to cut through these sounds and focus on the person making an order and the kind of language they are using, a process that requires a lot of fine-tuning, Mr. Kurian said. At the same time, people sometimes change their minds midway through an order and the application has to be able to capture that, he said. “It’s a very complicated technical problem.”
The application has also been programmed to upsell customers, offering larger sizes, Frosties or daily specials. Once the chatbot takes an order, it appears on a screen for line cooks. From there, prepared meals are relayed to the pickup window and handed off to drivers by a worker.
Kevin Vasconi, Wendy’s chief information officer, said test runs in recent months at the Columbus restaurant have been favorable.
“It’s at least as good as our best customer service representative, and it’s probably on average better,” Mr. Vasconi said, adding that part of the goal of the pilot rollout is to show Wendy’s franchisees that the technology works and can improve service speed and consistency.
Up to 80% of food orders at Wendy’s are made at the drive-through lane, compared with roughly two-thirds before the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said. The goal, Mr. Penegor said, is to get more customers through the drive-through in the shortest amount of time, picking up extra sales for every minute or so shaved off the ordering process.
In March, Wendy’s announced a restructuring plan to streamline costs, targeting systemwide sales growth in the mid-single digits through 2025. Under the plan, the company is aiming to hold general and administrative costs flat for the next two years. Global sales this year are expected to grow 6% to 8%, the company said.
Mr. Penegor said deploying the drive-through chatbot was not related to the restructuring efforts and that the company is not looking to replace workers with the chatbot. He said the new technology is expected to help workers do their jobs by handling many of the manual tasks involved in taking drive-through orders.
Spending in the global generative AI market is expected to reach $42.6 billion by the end of the year, growing at a compound annual rate of 32% to $98.1 billion by 2026, according to market analytics firm PitchBook Data.