The American fast food chain Dairy Queen recently announced that it will use the voice AI chatbot developed by Presto in the drive-thru lanes of many stores across the United States and Canada to accept food orders and make proactive purchase recommendations, hoping to speed up ordering and increase unit prices. According to the Wall Street Journal, this system has been tested in some stores, and Dairy Queen believes that AI can help alleviate peak pressure and perform positively in recommending additional food.
Dairy Queen’s large-scale introduction of technology comes from Presto, a company specializing in voice AI for restaurants. The company has previously cooperated with chain brands such as Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Taco John’s and Fazoli’s to deploy similar systems in its drive-thru lanes. However, Bloomberg disclosed in a report in 2023 that Presto's "AI drive-thru" may still be assisted by overseas human employees in actual operation, such as remote workers from the Philippines and other places, to assist in handling complex or difficult-to-identify order situations.
According to data cited by the Wall Street Journal, Presto's voice chatbot's order recognition and processing accuracy rate in drive-thru scenarios is about 90%, and about 10% of orders still require manual intervention or correction. Kevin Baartman, Dairy Queen's executive vice president and head of information technology, said the company stress-tested the AI system on the day it launched the free ice cream cone campaign. At that time, traffic flow and order volume surged. "The robot dealt with an entire fleet of vehicles without losing its temper like humans."
Dairy Queen did not disclose the specific stores in which the system will be deployed. It only said that it will "selectively" launch the AI drive-thru ordering service in some franchise stores in the United States and Canada. Whether to expand the scope in the future will depend on operational results and customer feedback. Industry insiders pointed out that in the context of rising labor costs, recruitment difficulties, and persistent service pressure during peak periods, voice AI is becoming one of the automation directions that fast food chain companies are exploring.
In fact, Dairy Queen is not the first fast food brand to try to use AI ordering in drive-thru lanes. As early as 2023, Wendy’s began to cooperate with Google to test an AI drive-thru ordering system driven by a large language model, trying to simplify the ordering process through more natural conversations. McDonald's partnered with IBM to briefly pilot a chatbot drive-thru service in some stores, and then ended the test and evaluated next strategies.
The advancement of similar projects in other brands has not been smooth sailing. Last year, a Taco Bell executive said that it would re-evaluate the scope of the brand's AI drive-thru promotion. Some customers expressed dissatisfaction with system failures and interactive experience during use, and some tried to test and interfere with AI in a prank or "tricky" way. At the same time, Burger King's AI application path is slightly different: in addition to piloting AI drive-thru ordering in less than 100 restaurants, it also built a chat assistant into employee headsets to measure the "friendliness" of employees toward customers and provide auxiliary tips during the meal preparation process.
Overall, the fast food industry is accelerating the introduction of AI technology, with diverse applications ranging from voice ordering to employee assistance tools. However, there are still widespread controversies in terms of accuracy, customer experience, privacy and employee management. Dairy Queen's cooperation with Presto will become one of the important cases to observe the commercial feasibility and social acceptance of AI in the drive-thru scenario. Its subsequent performance may affect the choice and balance between automation and manual services for more chain brands.