S F. Chronicle debuts AI-powered restaurant recommendation bot

We believe we have to innovate on behalf of restaurants, so we’re certainly tracking all the trends very closely. There might be times when you just want to leave or have your water refilled. Meanwhile, Zomato’s rival Swiggy partnered with Spyne.ai to provide AI-backed photoshoot features to its restaurant partners. The IPO-bound company was also piloting an AI chatbot named ‘neural search’ that offers personalised recommendations for a user’s open-ended and conversational queries. The latest development comes at a time when Indian enterprises have started leveraging AI to improve their services and increase efficiency amid the global GenAI boom. Xina offers a voice-ordering chatbot for kiosks and phone ordering, tailored for restaurants and hotels.

It filters its database for relevant locations and performs a similarity search to identify suitable restaurant recommendations. For instance, when asked about coffee shops in a specific neighborhood, Chowbot filters for that neighborhood and then searches for the most relevant restaurants. If a query contains a point of interest, like the San Francisco Chronicle office, it will use Google Maps to find the coordinates of that location to map it to a specific ZIP code area. EatDrinkLocals was preceded by Eat Local and then, EatDrinkLocals in 2019.

Some customers reported that McDonald's chatbot sometimes got even simple orders wrong. With the help of consumer data, using AI at a time of increasing economic pressures on both diners and businesses QSRs can easily and cost-effectively improve customer experiences. In 2024, we are sure to see QSRs of all sizes implement the technology in their own ways.

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Yelp Assistant not only helps you connect with pros who are suited for your project, but it also alleviates the guesswork on the type of specialists you may need, making hiring the right pros straightforward and stress-free. Once you let Yelp Assistant know what project or issue you’re looking to solve, it quickly springs into action with a personalized conversation to collect the necessary details a pro would need to evaluate your project. You have the option to either craft your own replies, choose from a selection of convenient one-click responses, or ask it a question to help further refine your response. Wendy’s plans to expand FreshAI into additional channels to improve the employee and customer experiences, as well. For queries involving geographical locations, since Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-3.5-turbo-1106 lack inherent geographical understanding, Chowbot employs a series of additional steps.

Additionally, as it is a more seamless system, there is less room for human error. Customers’ experiences at fast food restaurants will be improved if they don’t have to deal with frustrating inconveniences such as slow orders when they’re in a rush or getting the wrong meal. However, the chatbot needs to be set up with accurate and updated information to provide a seamless customer experience.

Adding AI to its digital channels could help Wendy’s grow this part of the business, which made up over 12% of sales during the third quarter. Wendy’s CEO Todd Pennegor said in November during the company’s earnings call. The company also has grown its loyalty program to 35 million and monthly active users grew 40% to 5 million quarter-over-quarter. Chowbot's core is five specialized versions of OpenAI's GPT-3.5-turbo-1106 model, each fine-tuned for specific tasks, ranging from identifying whether a query has a point of interest contained within it to actually answering a question. These models were developed using synthetic data, consisting of hundreds of hypothetical question-and-answer scenarios to enhance the bot's consistency and reliability.

Overall, Chowbot’s usefulness will only improve as the Food & Wine team updates and publishes more guides and our generative AI processes improve. Food On Demand Outstanding Operators features restaurant brands with innovative operations that are taking creative paths to success with delivery and ChatGPT App all things off-premises. According to the restaurant association, labor is still a big pain point for restaurant owners. Hudson Riehle, the NRA’s senior vice president of research and knowledge, said that one out of three operators report recruitment and retention as one of their top challenges.

Why did the Chronicle want to create an AI-powered restaurant recommendation bot?

While upselling may be good for the business’ bottom line, ill-timed offers from a worker or an AI agent can result in customer dissatisfaction. Humans are comfortable with natural language, so for AI implementations to be effective in food service, they must be genuinely conversational. Legacy chatbot systems may have limitations that often follow hard coded, scripted conversation. They may be incapable of handling complex customer orders and delivering accurate responses in real-time, which defeats the purpose of ‘fast food’. As the world quickly shifts toward an AI-first framework, the food and beverage industry is embracing cutting-edge technologies like conversational AI (CAI) and generative AI (GAI) to reshape the future of food services.

Gupta denied that Presto’s AI backstop with workers from the Philippines was a form of labor arbitrage, a process by which employers exploit differences in the cost of labor between markets to save revenue. Others, meanwhile, were more resigned to the fact that AI might be the future of fast food ordering. Another content creator, Levi (@take5_ai), who provides takes on AI, attempted to guess what this all meant for AI in restaurants.

Ghai estimates that if he can get it to perform at 90%, a store employee might have to step in to take over an order just three times every hour, freeing up the worker to do other tasks. Still, Gargiulo sees the day when AI will speed up the drive-through line, boosting sales and consumer satisfaction. “Right now the drive-through time is slowed by repeated orders,” he said.

While McDonald’s is revaluating and refining its plans for AOT, we look forward to continuing to work with them on a variety of other projects. IBM also is now in discussions and pilots with several Quick-Serve Restaurant clients who are interested in the AOT technology." Although IBM will no longer be relied on for AI drive-thrus, the two companies still apparently have business ties for other parts of McDonald's operations. The fast food giant is slated to take the feature offline by July 26, according to Restaurant Business, which obtained an internal email sent to franchisees last week. The letter reportedly offers very little explanation for why the program is ending. The AI search platform Perplexity added Yelp’s content to its search results through the Yelp Fusion API.

A.Using AI in analytics suite and processes as well as using geofencing and mobile tracking technologies to give more accurate promise times. Detailed insight into our operations is one of the most valuable, yet elusive forms of intelligence that can make the greatest impact on our performance and results. More accurate promise times using geofencing and mobile tracking technologies. You just have to use the Chick-fil-A app a couple of times to realize how it makes the consumer journey incredibly more efficient and convenient. There are several tech products that can integrate with all of our ordering portals, POS and KDS systems to provide customized communication between the guest and venue team to reduce stress and improve overall proficiency.Q.

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McDonald’s test with IBM is in the process of ending this month, though the Golden Arches did not clarify why it was sunsetting the tech. As of March, Presto Automation’s voice AI required human intervention in roughly 70% of orders, and the revenue generated by voice-AI was not enough to compensate for the end of Presto’s major tablet deals. AI is a powerful tool that can help greatly increase the customer experience. It helps improve the efficiency of workers, reduces wait time, and can track trends. Looking at the year ahead, AI will likely be implemented by even more QSRs, and for good reason.

Their bot concierge service offers AI-powered voice ordering by phone or text-to-order services. Chief Marketing Officer Mike Mayo said restaurants are losing money on phone orders because they are understaffed and can’t take calls during peak hours. The company’s text-to-order solution can increase revenue by 37% because the bots are taking every call.

With growing health consciousness, AI could be used to create personalized, healthier meal options for customers based on their dietary preferences and restrictions. Further advancements in voice recognition technology could make customer interactions more seamless, with AI systems taking orders through drive-thrus or even over the phone with near-human accuracy. Q. If you had to choose one to two top tech trends that restaurants should embrace in 2024, what would they be and why? ML algorithms can analyze customer preferences and behavior to provide personalized recommendations and enhance menu offerings. By adopting Robotic Process Automation technology, restaurants can improve operational efficiency, reduce errors, and enhance the guest experience by allowing staff to focus on customer service and quality control. Another important tech trend for restaurants in 2024 is the adoption of contactless technologies.

AI-based technology can be an incredibly valuable resource for the restaurant industry when utilized properly. It can make customer experiences more consistent and predictable, minimize human error, and reduce operating costs. Restaurant owners agree, as nearly half of hospitality operators in the U.S. and Canada said they planned to utilize some form of automation technology.

Perplexity plans more integrations like this in the future, and it already works with the answer engine WolframAlpha for mathematical computations. Srinivas provided a few potential examples, like working providers of shopping data or financial data. Ethos, an entirely AI-generated restaurant that only exists on social media pages and a website, went viral the other day when Andreessen Horowitz’s partner Justine Moore posted about the would-be Austin restaurant.

And what we have, I would say, is a much friendlier, hospitable version of a lot of those types of technologies. We are hyper-focused on areas that we can improve for our crew or our customers. The other areas where we are deploying AI is when you think about suggestive selling. As part of our order-taking experience, we want to make sure any products we offer the customer make sense not just with the order they’ve made but to them as a consumer generally. As brands are trying to improve order efficiency and lower labor costs, they’re turning to AI—and even adding an entertainment factor. Yelp Waitlist has made it easier than ever for diners to join the waitlist at their favorite restaurants from anywhere, while freeing up host time to focus on other important front-of-house operations.

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. This New York City-based startup is using remote cashiers to take orders from kiosks or digital screens set up in drive-thru lanes. The remote cashiers will answer phones and respond to social media reviews. CEO Chi Tsang said remote cashiers work at one location at a time and provide a friendly face for a customer, which he believes is a better solution than voice bots. Its drive-thru voice assistants can be found taking orders at White Castle and Panda Express. More announcements are coming soon, company spokesperson told Food on Demand.

Multiple AI-driven robotics companies have received national interest and investor funding to build robots that can make a variety of food, such as pizza, french fries and hamburgers, to name a few. Chipotle Mexican Grill is testing a robotic tortilla chip-making machine named “Chippy” in the hopes of delivering a consistent, perfectly cooked, well-seasoned chip. White Castle has been testing AI provided by speech recognition company SoundHound. And Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and others use AI drive-through tech that an SEC filing revealed was underpinned by remote human workers in the Philippines most of the time.

Taco Bell’s U.S. system sales grew 7% to $4 billion in the second quarter of 2024. By sales, Taco Bell is the largest restaurant chain based in Orange County, according to Business Journal research. Brands is integrating digital and technology into all aspects of our business with exciting new capabilities, and AI is a core piece of that strategy,” Yum! Chief Innovation Officer Lawrence Kim said. And customers should expect to encounter shoddy AI integration at other drive-thru lanes as well.

Once one store is live, setup for additional units takes just a few hours. Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken launched AI technology with Delaware-based Hi Auto and is using it in its drive-thrus. In December, Hi Auto announced the addition of its voice-cloning feature to the partnership.

While there is concern that AI may eventually replace human employees, it is currently being used as a supplemental tool to improve efficiency and increase success. There still needs to be a human element for quality control and overseeing the technology to ensure everything runs smoothly. Although fast food chains have been the main adopters of AI-powered features and robot tech, restaurants of all sizes can benefit from using AI. As the capabilities of AI continue to develop, it's likely that restaurants will increasingly rely on it to optimize various aspects of their operations and enhance the overall customer experience.

This article explores the current landscape of AI in fast food chains, highlights real-world examples, and discusses future possibilities. Q. If you had to choose a few tech trends that restaurants should embrace in 2024, what would they be and why? A.Optimizing the technology that supports your employee journey is not just a strategic necessity but an exciting opportunity. By harnessing cutting-edge solutions and a data-driven approach, you create the path to crafting an extraordinary and seamlessly enjoyable experience for exceptional employees. Think about the best employees you have today, what else could you put in place that could help elevate them to the next level?

At the show, the company demonstrated its voice bot for both kiosk and phone ordering. For kiosk interactions, a consumer taps a button on the screen to engage the chatbot and then converses with it. Izabela Nad, ChatGPT director of operations, said operators are primarily interested in the phone order bot system, as it relieves staff from this task. She added that the software is compatible with restaurant drive-thru systems.

With accurate AI speech recognition and faster, clearer communication to the kitchen staff, he said, you can cut as much as 90 seconds off what typically takes 5½ minutes for a customer to complete a drive-through purchase. Faily, Tillster’s CEO since late 2007, wouldn’t disclose the company’s sales increase, chatbot for restaurant but said its new customers include Burger King and Popeyes, and that employment at the firm is up 75 from a year ago, to 340 currently. “The minimum wage increase has completely changed the landscape,” she said. Kiosks may be appealing in that they can not only save on labor, but also drive higher sales.

The subsequent proliferation of artificial intelligence paved a path for what a chat bot could do for businesses. The business’ social media platforms will also contain the gathered information and can be updated and revised in real time. He says his initial investment for the AI drive-through technology, purchased from San Carlos-based Presto, is about $10,000 per store.

• Restaurants can implement contactless ordering and payment systems, self-service kiosks and digital menus to provide a safer and more convenient dining experience for customers.Q.
• The pizza segment is one of the early adopters of AI-driven robotics in the kitchen.
• Wait time accuracy continues to improve with AI through our use of neural networks to help diners better plan their restaurant outings.
• We wish you the best in your attempt to juke the algorithm, misdirect the riff-raff, and reclaim your city.
• EatDrinkLocals was preceded by Eat Local and then, EatDrinkLocals in 2019.

Our new LLM-powered partner solution, Yelp Fusion AI API, enables innovative user experiences using natural language search, even if partners have no previous AI products or experiences. But what has Ghai most hopeful about offsetting the higher labor costs is to have AI handle customers’ orders made at the drive-through. He’s testing the machine-learning system this month at a few locations and hopes to roll it out company-wide by this time next year.

It’s possible, then, that the fast food chain is on the hunt for a new partner for its automated ordering efforts. Yum! Brands said that the AI technology will add to Taco Bell’s “strong drive-thru customer experience ecosystem” driven by the restaurant chain’s digital menu boards, POS system and the incoming iteration of its rewards loyalty program. We're looking to enhance store development and marketing through various innovative tech partnerships.

Gathering as much data about our guests and offering personalized guest interactions will be our priority this year. Improving training and optimizing real estate strategies with tech are also on the horizon. Those two companies have thousands of employees working on this technology.

Furthermore, fast food restaurants are incorporating AI into customer relationship management. AI tools are being used to analyze customer data to tailor marketing strategies and personalize offers. Domino's Pizza uses AI to track customer preferences and suggest orders, improving customer satisfaction and sales.

It’s like what a fine dining restaurant might do or a nicer hotel might do. Bringing that to life at scale with data, I think, is something that’s very much possible. The restaurant industry went through one of its most tumultuous periods in years when Covid hit, with millions of jobs suddenly lost, followed by a worker shortage when the economy recovered. McDonald’s gave no public reason for ending its test run, according to Restaurant Business, telling franchises that it would shut down the technology on 26 July.

“We will actively start removing such images from menus by the end of this month. And will stop accepting AI generated dish images (as much as we can detect them using automation),” he said on X (formerly Twitter). The development comes almost a month after Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal urged restaurant partners to avoid using AI to generate dish images in restaurant menus. Bite Ninja’s virtual drive-thru cashiers are remote workers who take orders in a Zoom-like conference call setting.

Bring your news, your perspective and your spark to the St Pete Catalyst and take your seat at the table. Kraeger added that the bot’s multichannel integration worked with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google Messages as well as the business’ website, SMS and voice. He created a fictional law firm, and punched a potential client’s information into the app. The law firm asked what he needed help with and he shared that he was a troubled wife looking to start divorce proceedings from her husband.