Drive-Thru AI Chatbot vs. Fast-Food Worker: We Tested the Tech
Joanna Stern: Every time you go through this Hardee’s Drive-through, you’ll hear…
“Would you like to try a peach pie for 1.59?”
Joanna Stern: Nope.
“Would you like to try a peach pie for 1.59?”
Joanna Stern: No.
“Peach pie for 1.59?”
Joanna Stern: No, thank you.
“Peach pie?”
Joanna Stern: No peach pie.
“I have one peach pie.”
Joanna Stern: No peach pie.
That’s because that’s an AI chatbot that now takes all the drive-through orders at this Hardee’s location on Kent Island, in Maryland. Well, unless the bot needs human help.
“One moment. Let me get a team member to help you.”
“Sorry, how may I help you?”
Joanna Stern: And this tech may be coming to a restaurant near you. Made by a company named Presto, it’s available at 350 locations in the country, including Carl’s Jr., Del Taco, and Checkers. It even uses some of OpenAI’s GPT tech. But, how does the tech work? And is it really taking over real jobs? - We don’t need that, right?
I designed three challenges and drove through this drive-through about 30 times…
“Thank you for choosing Hardee’s. Thank you for choosing Hardee’s. Thank you for choosing Hardee’s. Thank you for choosing Hardee’s.”
Joanna Stern: …to find out how good this bot is at feeding hungry humans.
Challenge one, speech recognition. The first thing Presto does is use automatic speech recognition to convert an order to text, so the AI system can understand it.
I’d like the Big Hardee Combo with extra ketchup and a Diet Coke.
“Sure. Would you like to make that a medium or a large?”
Joanna Stern: But as we all know from speech to text on our phones, sometimes it isn’t perfect, especially with background noise, which there’s typically a lot of at a drive-through. Initiate dog sounds. Can I get the 10-piece chicken nuggets?
“What dipping sauce would you like?”
Joanna Stern: What dipping sauces do you have?
“Ranch, honey mustard, barbecue sauce, honey-q, and hot or creamy Buffalo sauce.”
Joanna Stern: I’ll do the honey mustard. Do you like dogs?
“Sure.”
Joanna Stern: Okay, but what about, can I get a kid’s meal?
“Got it.”
Joanna Stern: Let’s do the two-piece chicken tenders.
“What dipping sauce would you like?”
Joanna Stern: And for the extreme challenge.
“What can we get started for you today?”
Joanna Stern: Can I get a Big Hardee with a Diet Coke?
“Can you please speak louder so that I may hear you?”
Joanna Stern: Just one Big Hardee with a Diet Coke, please.
“One moment. Let me get a team member to help you.”
Joanna Stern: Okay, I’m not even sure a human would hear me over that. Challenge one, pass. Challenge two, natural language processing.
Once the system has that text prompt, it goes to the AI brain, what’s called Presto Natural Language Understanding. The AI interprets the prompt and determines a follow-up response.
“Would you like to make that a medium or a large?”
Joanna Stern: Large.
“Would you like to try a peach pie for 1.59? What drink would you like?”
Joanna Stern: Diet Coke, and no to the peach pie.
At this location, Presto has now incorporated OpenAI’s GPT into the system to make the read-back portion of the order sound more human-like.
“I have one number four, the Big Hardee Combo with extra ketchup, large fries and a large diet Coke. Correct?”
Joanna Stern: Once the order is received, it’s transferred to the restaurant’s kitchen display so a human can make and package up the food. For simple, straightforward orders, it works well.
Got the order right. It’s fairly efficient. And yes, there’s the upsell.
“Would you like to try a peach pie?”
Joanna Stern: I do not want the peach pie.
“Got it.”
Joanna Stern: It also did quite well when I changed my order. I’d like the Big Hardee Combo. Actually.
“Sure. Would you like medium or large?”
Joanna Stern: Sorry. Sorry. Actually, I’d like the Superstar with cheese.
“Sure thing.”
Joanna Stern: Unlike ChatGPT, which is trained on a large language model, this system is trained on a limited set of data, including the restaurant’s menu. Can I get two spicy tuna rolls?
“I’m sorry, but that item is currently unavailable.
Joanna Stern: You have a pepperoni pizza?
“No.”
Joanna Stern: And it does fail at some pretty simple tasks. Do you know how many calories there are in the Western Bacon Cheeseburger?
“One moment. Let me get a team member to help you.”
Joanna Stern: I am allergic to gluten. Is there gluten in that?
“No.”
Joanna Stern: There’s definitely gluten in that bread. Can I speak to a human?
“One moment, please. Let me get someone to help you.”
“Hi, I’m sorry about that. We do have a lettuce wrap.”
Joanna Stern: Presto said this was an error and that any allergy questions should trigger the bot to get a human.
Challenge two, I’m giving it a pass, because it did get most orders right. But yes, it needs to work on the allergy issue.
Challenge three, humanness. One of the things I like about drive-throughs, or I say I like about drive-throughs, is talking to a human. What’s your favorite Taylor Swift song? What’s your favorite thing on the menu? Say “order when ready” please if you are free tonight.
“Order when ready please.”
Joanna Stern: Yeah. But 3.3 million Americans are fast-food or counter workers, making this a very human-centric job. Do we really want AI taking this job? Yet here at the Hardee’s on this 15-mile island in Maryland, AI hasn’t taken jobs, at least not yet.
Michale Cato: We put Presto in to support our team. They’re currently understaffed, as in most restaurants currently in the area. Now that we have Presto, our frontline personnel are more free to do other things like drop fries, assemble orders, tend to dining room guests, make our hand dipped ice cream shakes. Make sure that quality assurance in every level is to standard. We have no intention of cutting labor.
Joanna Stern: And I was happy to hear that, given how very nice the humans at the Hardee’s were and how unhuman like the bot was. Okay, thank you so much.
“Have a great day.”
Joanna Stern: So, what did we learn here today? Well, that this AI is very good at the basics of drive-through order taking. But like most applications of AI right now, this is a way to help humans rather than fully replace them. A human still has to babysit this bot.
“So typically, this is where we would lock in and take over.”
Joanna Stern: But all I did was order the Big Hardee.
“Yeah. This is what we deal with sometimes. I apologize.”
Joanna Stern: But of course, this tech is only going to get better. And more companies will give in to making AI part of their workforce. Just like I gave in to the peach pie on a hundred-degree day. Some cream filling.
