Wendy's will soon use an AI chatbot to take drive through orders

"Would you like fries with that, you insufferable human?"

In fairness this actually seems like a pretty good idea. Given my rate of success at conveying an order through the speaker to the other person at the McDonald’s near me I have to think that a chatbot would likely be an upgrade.

“I said un-sweetened ice(d) tea”

“One large ice(d) tea. Pull around…”

“No. One…Oh never mind.”

It was sweet tea.

But you will know that the robot revolution is really getting going when Chic-fil-A stops hiring clean cut kids to take your order and replaces them with robots. Run for the hills if that happens.

I mean don’t really because it likely will happen.

(From The Wall Street Journal)

The Dublin, Ohio-based fast-food chain’s chatbot will be officially rolled out in June at a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, Wendy’s said. The goal is to streamline the ordering process and prevent long lines in the drive-through lanes from turning customers away, said Wendy’s Chief Executive Todd Penegor. 

Wendy’s didn’t disclose the cost of the initiative beyond saying the company has been working with Google in areas like data analytics, machine learning and cloud tools since 2021. 

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