Wendy’s chief information officer Matt Spessard is hopeful that the fast-food chain’s implementation of generative artificial intelligence technology throughout its drive-thrus will be successful.
In an interview with Fortune, Spessard said the company feels “more and more bullish on our approach with the technology that we’ve developed” along with its partnership with Google Cloud. Wendy’s AI-powered voice-ordering technology — called Wendy’s FreshAI — uses Google Cloud’s large language model to process orders in both English and Spanish.
The new feature aims to increase productivity by giving crew members more time to prepare food and cut costs, Fortune explained. Wendy’s FreshAI has already proved to be efficient following its initial launch in a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant. The test showed service times were “22 seconds faster than the average in the region,” per Fortune.
Wendy’s isn’t the only fast-food chain introducing AI technology into its restaurant drive-thrus. Taco Bell, Checkers and Carl’s Jr. are also rolling out AI-powered drive-thrus to hundreds of its US locations. The same can’t be said for McDonald’s, which officially removed the technology from its drive-thru restaurants after ending a two-year partnership with IBM in June.
Wendy’s says it’s improving its AI technology by changing the AI’s voice ordering tone to make it sound more friendly and approachable.
“Our experience has indicated that customers are ready to participate in the automated order-taking process like the FreshAI assistant . . . this isn’t the first time people have interacted with an AI agent,” Spessard said.
“People have voice assistants in their homes and on their phones. And what we have, I would say, is a much friendlier, hospitable version of a lot of those types of technologies.”
