Fast-food chains are aggressively rolling out AI voice ordering at the drive-thru after earlier failures drove public mockery and rollbacks. Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, and White Castle are now scaling the technology across hundreds of locations, with improvements in speed (21 seconds faster than average) and accuracy addressing the viral disasters of 2023.
The real appeal for chains is upselling: AI pushes add-ons 71 percent of the time versus 58 percent for humans.
While 97 percent of customers report satisfaction, some worry about losing human connection.
What happened
After early failures, fast-food chains are rolling out AI voice ordering at scale. Taco Bell has deployed it at 890 US locations (over 10 percent of its chain), Dairy Queen is expanding across 25 states, and White Castle has equipped 12 percent of its locations with an AI named "Julia." McDonald's resumed testing AI ordering this summer with Google at five locations. According to Intouch Insight's annual survey, roughly 6 percent of US fast-food locations now use voice AI in the drive-thru, up from 5 percent last year and 4 percent in 2024.
Why it matters
The technology failed spectacularly in 2023—viral TikToks showed McDonald's AI adding 260 Chicken McNuggets to orders and bacon to ice cream. Early AI agents were less friendly and less accurate than humans, and chains had to station employees ready to intervene. But the technology has improved enough that major chains are now betting on it as a core competitive tool. Intouch Insight found AI drive-thrus average 21 seconds faster than industry standard. More significantly, AI upsells 71 percent of the time versus a 58 percent industry average for humans—meaning the real payoff is margin expansion, not labor replacement.
What to watch
McDonald's is testing the technology at five US locations in partnership with Google, with support for English and Spanish. Dairy Queen plans eventual rollout to all restaurants. Employment data so far shows no job losses—White Castle's headcount remained steady through the rollout, and Taco Bell reported higher employee retention at locations using voice AI. However, customer sentiment remains mixed: while Intouch Insight reported 97 percent satisfaction, some customers express unease about losing human connection.
Kristen Charpentier's encounter with an AI voice at a Dairy Queen drive-thru in Cary, North Carolina, revealed how far the technology has progressed: she immediately noticed something was "too nice," with perfect pleases and thank-yous and no communication delay. When she asked the worker at the window, the employee confirmed that Charpentier was one of thousands of US customers experiencing AI-voice-equipped ordering. According to Intouch Insight's annual Drive Thru Survey, roughly 4 percent of fast-food locations in the US used voice AI in 2024, climbing to 5 percent last year and now 6 percent.
Taco Bell has led the aggressive rollout, announcing in July that it deployed AI across 890 drive-thru lanes—more than 10 percent of the chain's US locations. Dairy Queen is implementing the technology in 25 states with eventual plans for all restaurants. White Castle operates an AI named "Julia" at 12 percent of locations, and all new White Castle restaurants now open with Julia handling orders. McDonald's, the chain that started the trend in 2019 by acquiring the AI-drive-thru startup Apprete (later folded into McD Tech Labs), has re-entered the space by testing AI-powered ordering in partnership with Google at five US locations, with support for English and Spanish. "The brands who have invested and who have been testing this heavily over the last three years—the technology has gotten to a point where they are ready to go," said Sarah Beckett, vice president of sales and marketing at Intouch Insight. "They're going to start scaling this massively."
The road to this comeback was paved with public humiliation. In 2023, social media erupted with viral videos of AI failures: one TikTok showed McDonald's AI adding 260 Chicken McNuggets to an order while customers screamed "Stop! Stop! Stop!" Another featured AI adding bacon to a McDonald's ice cream order. Customers also recorded themselves deliberately breaking the systems, like the man who ordered 18,000 cups of water at Taco Bell. Beyond the spectacle, Intouch Insight documented systematic problems: early AI drive-thrus were less friendly than humans, with lower order accuracy. Most struggled to understand some accents and dialects, forcing chains to station human employees on headsets ready to intervene. For AI agents, the flowchart of a fast-food order proved bafflingly complex. Michael Schatzberg, cofounder of Branded Hospitality, a firm that invests in food-service-technology companies, recalled the industry backlash: "The restaurants ended up spending more time smoothing over the problem they created. Everyone was like, 'This is the worst. Stop. Get the people back with the headsets.'" Branded Hospitality sold off its AI-drive-thru investments. In 2024, Del Taco rolled back its AI test entirely. McDonald's sold McD Tech Labs to IBM and abandoned the technology altogether.
The chains that persisted—Dairy Queen, White Castle, and Taco Bell—took a different path. Rather than pursuing perfection, they iterated quietly for years. White Castle, four years into its partnership with SoundHound AI, saw measurable improvements. Chief marketing officer Jamie Richardson reported that AI drive-thrus make employee shifts run smoother and speed up service; Intouch Insight's data confirmed this, finding that on average, AI drive-thrus beat the industry by 21 seconds. Richardson acknowledged that viral disasters tend to be "overblown" and emphasized White Castle's strategy: "It wasn't bad at the start. It's gotten so much better as time has gone on." This summer, McDonald's signaled its return with the Google partnership, suggesting the industry consensus has shifted. Branded Hospitality, the same firm that had sold off early investments, recently partnered with Arc, a voice AI-drive-thru company working with Southern chain Jack's and chicken chain Pollo Campero. Schatzberg's reassessment was blunt: "AI drive-thru 1.0 was a flop. But now? Companies have evolved, technology has evolved, and they're like—we can fix a lot of those problems."
Customer reactions remain split. Kristen Charpentier, who had worked a Dairy Queen drive-thru as a teenager, embraced the technology: "I think it's a great thing. There's room for human error, and I'm sure there's going to be room for AI error. But I think, as we've all seen with the advent of AI, there is more consistency with AI than there is in humans." Intouch Insight reported a 97 percent satisfaction rate for the technology. Others, like Schereé Reed, who encountered AI at a Wendy's in Virginia, felt "bewildered." Reed expected a human to intervene; when the robotic voice persisted, he wondered if his burger would arrive on a conveyor belt. "I worry a lot about the ways that relying more and more on AI actually removes us from our human connections, like our ability to make community," Reed told WIRED. Notably, Chick-fil-A—which tops Intouch Insight's friendliness ratings despite long lines—has never hinted at replacing human workers. Coffee chains Dutch Bros and 7Brew, two of the fastest-growing in the US, have similarly avoided AI. Nick Chavez, chief marketing officer of 7Brew, explained in an email: "For us, hospitality starts with genuine human connection, and that's something our guests consistently tell us they value."
Data on employment has surprised skeptics. Executives claimed AI would not displace workers, and the numbers so far support this. Most drive-thru staff multitask across multiple roles, and full automation is extraordinarily difficult to execute. White Castle's employment numbers remained steady throughout its AI rollout. Taco Bell reported that locations using voice AI have higher employee retention rates. The real economic leverage lies elsewhere: upselling. Intouch Insight found that AI drive-thru agents use "suggestive selling" 71 percent of the time, compared to an industry average of 58 percent. AI is relentless in pushing add-ons—a Diet Coke, extra Snickers on a Blizzard—and customers tolerate it because the margin boost doesn't infuriate them. In the near future, chains project that AI-equipped drive-thrus could take orders in dozens of languages, recognize returning customers by vehicle, and offer hyper-personalized suggestions. White Castle's Richardson acknowledged the frontier of personalization: "Imagine pulling up to McDonald's and having a chipper automated voice offer you a buy-one-get-one-free milkshake deal—then realizing that the chain offered you the deal because it calculated you are 78 percent more likely to order dessert on the second Tuesday of every month." He added, "We never want to seem creepy." For now, White Castle allows customers to request a human worker at any time. Richardson noted that "Julia" has already won over employees themselves, and he credits the chain's approach to drive-thru AI as part of why White Castle was the only fast-food chain to crack Fortune's top 20 list of best workplaces in retail last year.
Fast-food chains' pivot to AI drive-thru ordering represents a second wave of adoption after a failed first attempt. McDonald's kicked off the trend in 2019 with its acquisition of Apprete and the creation of McD Tech Labs, but the pandemic-era expansion exposed critical flaws: the technology struggled with accents, dialects, and the cascading logic of a complex order. By 2023, public ridicule on social media and internal friction—Branded Hospitality even sold off its early investments—forced a retreat. What has changed is incremental but meaningful: the underlying AI models have improved in comprehension and context-handling, and chains have shifted strategy from pursuing perfection to accepting that humans can intervene when needed. White Castle's Jamie Richardson explicitly frames the approach as "incremental improvement rather than waiting for an infallible AI agent," and the data backs it—Intouch Insight reports AI drive-thrus now beat the industry average by 21 seconds.
The economic logic driving the renewal is upselling rather than labor displacement. Intouch Insight's finding that AI agents use suggestive selling 71 percent of the time compared to an industry average of 58 percent reveals what chains actually see as the payoff: margin expansion through add-on purchases without triggering customer backlash. This also explains why Chick-fil-A, Dutch Bros, and 7Brew—brands with reputations for superior hospitality—have explicitly eschewed the technology. These chains recognize that human connection is their differentiator; for them, AI would trade brand equity for modest upselling gains. Meanwhile, chains like Taco Bell and Dairy Queen are banking that speed, consistency, and aggressive upselling will outweigh customer concerns about losing the human element. The 97 percent satisfaction rate suggests most customers are willing to accept the trade-off.
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