Wendy's: Burger chain upgrades drive-thru to Google's AI chatbot

The American fast food chain Wendy’s wants to automate its drive-through service using artificial intelligence. In the future, customers will therefore be talking to a computer at the communication column – which first had to learn all the possible names for burgers and the like.

In the future, anyone who orders burgers or fries from the car at Wendy’s will be dealing with an AI chatbot. Behind this is a cooperation between the American chain and the Internet company Google, who have developed a bot that is supposed to interact with hungry customers using natural language. The challenge here is to let the bot learn all the names for different fast food products with which the customers want to order their burgers & co.

Wendy’s promises ‘very chatty’ chatbot

First, Wendy’s is equipping a branch in Columbus, Ohio, with the new technology. The AI chatbot is to be used there from June to speed up the ordering process and reduce the waiting time in the drive-through so that fewer customers run away because the order is taking too long for them.

According to the company, the chatbot is said to be very “chatty” so that customers usually do not realize that they are not dealing with a human employee. The system is based on Google’s Large Language Model (LLM), on which Wendy’s relies on a highly customized generative AI application that works with a variety of words, phrases and popular expressions in a number of different dialects and accents to create syntax and to mimic the semantics of human language. Google and Wendy’s also take into account the habits of customers, who often use abbreviations, nicknames or their own words for certain products. They also want to ensure that the AI system blocks out ambient noise and is able to react to the possibility of spontaneous decisions during the order because some customers suddenly change their order.

One of the most important functions of the burger restaurant’s ordering AI is to make additional products palatable to customers. In particular, the system offers larger variants of certain products, advertises daily specials or additional drinks. Tests are already being carried out in which Wendy’s lets the order bot “work” in customer contact at the Columbus site. With its introduction, the group is reacting, among other things, to the fact that the proportion of orders in the drive-through has almost tripled in recent years.

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