How AI Could Change Fast Food

Remember that curious look the fast-food staff gives you when you say you want eggs, the least popular topping to add to your burger, for yourself? We've been there. Not particularly for eggs, but we all have our not-so-popular or quirky preferences, a part of what makes people unique. You might have also had to repeat a custom order, not because the staff didn't care, but because the request was just that out-of-the-box. Well, that's about to change. 

With A.I. stepping in, major chains like Wendy's are rolling out drive-thru systems powered by artificial intelligence that can handle more than 200 billion possible order combinations and get them right with nearly 99 percent accuracy. Soon, you'll be able to order your wackiest food mashup (without anyone judging you) and get it bang on time. The chain has already tested Wendy's FreshAI, which is what the new platform is called, and it plans to roll it out across 500 U.S. locations by the end of 2025. And this isn't the only A.I. reshaping the fast-food world.

This dynamic technology could have several major impacts. Perhaps the most salient is its potential to replace employees. However, A.I. could also streamline inventory management, reinvent menus, and change the way customers place orders. Somewhat ironically, a push to supplant human interactions with software-driven communication might even lead to greater personalization.

Imagine Rosie from The Jetsons, the multitasking robot housekeeper, only now, she's a whiz in the kitchen. That's become a reality, and it's perhaps the most apparent futuristic introduction brought into the fast food world by A.I.

A culinary robot is already part of our lives in a few restaurants across the world, one of which is CaliExpress by Flippy in Pasadena, California. Constructed by Miso Robotics, Flippy is a robotic arm that relies on A.I. sensors to execute tasks such as cooking and transferring food in the kitchen. The restaurant also uses facial recognition software (another type of artificial intelligence) to identify customers and facilitate payment. No human cooks are needed, though people will still be involved in packaging the food. Such an arrangement could significantly reduce labor costs, lower the need for people to handle dangerous kitchen equipment, and become a boon for restaurants with concerns about understaffing.

Some robotic chefs go even further, aiming to mimic human capabilities with the help of machine learning. Scientists in Cambridge have come up with robot chefs that can taste the food to check for the balance of flavors. Though they are yet to be put to commercial use, it's easy to see how machines that can taste food might give human cooks a run for their money. In fact, according to the restaurant consultancy firm Aaron Allen & Associates, over 82% of restaurant roles could potentially be supplanted by robots.

Around 60 million tons of food, about 40% of the total food supply in the U.S., is thrown away every year, and restaurants contribute a significant portion of that. But A.I. is gradually stepping in to help food chains reduce waste by improving demand forecasting. In simple terms, it's helping prevent both over- and understocking ingredients.

One household name that is embracing this much-needed technology is McDonald's. The fast-food juggernaut is planning to roll out A.I. across 43,000 of its restaurants in order to optimize ingredient use and manage supplies more efficiently. The move is expected to help the chain cut back on food waste and lower operational costs.

The technology will also help in predicting when customers are likely to place an order, making way for faster delivery and a smoother kitchen flow. Domino's is already using this technology to make pizzas "before people order them," according to CEO Russell John Weiner (via Quartz). The pizza chain also aims to use A.I. to predict delivery shortages and optimize pizza production.

Restaurants often find themselves looking for the next culinary hook to reel in new customers and give existing fans more menu items to try. While a human chef could tinker with taste profiles or ride the wave of an emerging food trend, A.I. may lighten the creative load by making recipe suggestions.

That's precisely what happened in the case of Velvet Taco, a fast-casual chain with more than 40 locations throughout the U.S. As CEO Clay Dover explained (via Business Insider), the restaurant's head chef enlisted the help of ChatGPT to design a new taco. After testing and tweaking the suggestions, the Chat GPTaco was born. Made with shrimp, flank steak, crispy potatoes, chimichurri, and red chile aioli, among other ingredients, it was the chain's top-selling taco in 2023.

Even if a chef opts to not ask A.I. for recipe ideas, it could still play a central role in creating or redesigning menu offerings. In fact, Burger King provided a glimpse of what that could look like with its Million Dollar Whopper Contest. In that case, customers hungry for a new take on the B.K. classic (and a chance to win money) entered suggestions using A.I. technology to render images of their ideas. The chain released three limited-time items as a result: the fried pickle ranch Whopper, the maple bourbon BBQ Whopper, and the Mexican street corn Whopper. Not only did the technology assist in making a menu change, but it also aided that chain's effort to engage consumers.

One of the more evident uses of A.I. in the culinary world is drive-thrus, which sometimes use voice recognition and natural language processing to automate the ordering experience. Instead of a human taking your request, an A.I.-powered voice assistant speaks to you, much like a chatbot, and sends the information directly to the kitchen.

Several chains like McDonald's and Yum Brands (the parent company that runs KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and The Habit Burger Grill) have started testing this technology. Even Wendy's has started using Google-powered A.I. drive-thrus to improve efficiency and accuracy.

However, it might take time to perfect the technology. These systems still have a few shortcomings that have led to numerous incorrect orders. Some of these can be seen in TikTok videos of ordering gone wrong at McDonald's drive-thrus. Perhaps that's why the fast food chain has removed automated A.I.-based ordering from more than 100 locations across the U.S. The chain does, however, intend to revisit this technology in the future.

While A.I. is helping you place your order by speaking to a bot at drive-thrus, A.I.-powered kiosks are taking the technology up a notch by providing consumers with additional details about the menu, alongside the preexisting option to pay without any need for a cashier. It's a technology that could make human cashiers almost obsolete in the future, one of the primary concerns in the labor shortage argument regarding the rise of A.I. fast-food workers. A lot of McDonald's outlets, for example, are already equipped with this technology for ordering and paying. 

These kiosks are even helping create personalized dining experiences. How? By using A.I.-powered chatbots to curate content and offer recommendations based on your past orders and preferences. They do this through advanced data analytics. So if you tend to avoid dairy or meat, you'll see more vegan options, similar to how Instagram's algorithm surfaces content tailored to you. While these tech-driven changes are exciting and seem to be revolutionizing food for the better, it's hard to imagine what might come next if this is where we already are, at least in the culinary world.