American restaurant chain Wendy’s is planning to introduce its AI-assisted drive-thru platform to more restaurant locations across the US.

The pilot platform, called Wendy’s FreshAI, has been designed to overcome the challenges a traditional AI could not solve in a drive-thru, such as understanding casual conversation with customers and handling the restaurant chain’s menu, which offers a high degree of customisation and numerous configurations.

In May 2023, Wendy‘s partnered with Google Cloud to introduce the AI-based platform to take orders from customers. It was tested for several months at Wendy‘s location in Columbus, Ohio, and valuable lessons were learned in the process.

Accuracy — determined by the proportion of orders that Wendy's FreshAI successfully processed without the assistance of restaurant staff — averaged 86% during the pilot.

Success in AI drive-thru service is measured by the number of orders submitted without human intervention and by offering a consistent experience to customers.

The AI system speeds up each service time by an average of 22 seconds.

FreshAI is expected to act as an assistant, supporting rather than replacing the employees working at the drive-thru.

FreshAI has been deployed at four Wendy's outlets in Columbus, Ohio, with more to be introduced by the end of 2023 and early in 2024.

The company plans to take a multi-channel approach by integrating the AI system into its app, in-restaurant kiosks, mobile devices and smart home devices.