Fast food franchises have struggled to reliably replace drive-thru employees with AI chatbots, resulting in abundant corporate frustration. Not only are customers being driven mad by the bots getting orders completely wrong, but even some company executives are also being worn down by the flailing effort.
Some major players in the space, like McDonald’s, have given up on their AI-powered drive-thru efforts entirely, signaling that perhaps employing human workers may be a wiser long-term investment. Taco Bell soon followed suit, announcing it was rethinking the idea after a clip of a customer crashing the system by ordering 18,000 cups of water went viral.
Burger King, though, isn’t quite ready to give up on AI just yet. Instead of infuriating customers at drive-thrus, the company is looking to exasperate its existing employees with the tech instead. As The Verge reports, the franchise is launching an OpenAI-powered chatbot, dubbed “Patty,” that will speak to the staffers through the headsets they’re required to wear.
Worst of all, the company is using the AI to monitor words and phrases, such as “welcome to Burger King,” “please,” and ‘thank you.” Managers can then use that data to gauge the friendliness of their staff.
“This is all meant to be a coaching tool,” Burger King’s chief digital officer Thibault Roux told The Verge in a statement, arguing that the company is “iterating” on having its AI police the tone of its employees in the future.
The overarching “BK Assistant” platform that Patty will serve as the voice for will have access to a wide variety of data points, such as the state of its kitchen equipment or available inventory. For instance, as Roux explained, an item could be listed as out of stock “within 15 minutes,” and be reflected on digital menu boards throughout a restaurant.
Meanwhile, an AI-powered drive-thru isn’t quite in the cards for Burger King just yet.
“We’re tinkering with it, we’re playing around with it, but it’s still a risky bet,” Roux told The Verge. “Not every guest is ready for this.”
More on AI drive-thrus: Taco Bell’s Attempt to Replace Drive-Thru Employees With AI Is Not Going Well
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