By industry
What restaurants & hospitality owners and operators have put into production, what it cost and what went wrong.
Collection: Restaurants & hospitality AI use cases (Verified and Reported only) →
CEO Andrew Cathy told CNBC the chain wants hospitality "to be human to human." An industry mystery-shop study found voice AI was faster but less accurate than people.
The vendor is voice AI company Omilia. In a January 2025 mystery-shop study of 40 visits, a person still had to step in on almost a third of Taco Bell's AI orders.
Bojangles' "Bo-Linda" is in 450 of about 880 restaurants, and White Castle's "Julia" is in about 40. Both chains say accuracy is high and no jobs were cut. Some customers say the experience feels cold.
Green Dot Assist went from a 35-store pilot to full North American deployment in about five months. U.S. transactions grew for the first time in two years, but Starbucks credits a bundle of changes, and profits fell.
The seafood chain says an AI agent will answer every takeout call at all its locations. Neither company has published any results.
The Ohio pizza chain put an AI voice agent on the phones at 174 restaurants. Every figure on how it went comes from Donatos and its vendor.
A year after promising hundreds of stores, Taco Bell's tech chief says the chain is rethinking where the AI should take orders, and when people should step back in.
Both sides agree the flaws were real and were closed within hours. They disagree on whether 64 million records or five candidates' data were at stake.
Green Dot Assist answers staff questions on in-store iPads, from drink recipes to broken equipment. Starbucks announced a small pilot as part of its turnaround plan, with no cost or success measures published.
The chain told the Wall Street Journal it is putting sensors on kitchen equipment so AI can flag breakdowns in machines such as fryers and McFlurry makers. It would not say how many restaurants have the system.
The salad chain ended 2024 with 12 automated "Infinite Kitchens" and plans to roughly triple that in 2025. Its own filing warns that Chinese-made parts and new tariffs could make more units too costly.
On its February 2025 earnings call, Wendy's said its voice-AI order taker is in about 100 restaurants and will reach 500 to 600 this year. The only accuracy number it has published, 86%, comes from four Columbus restaurants in 2023.
The system is already taking orders in more than 100 Taco Bells in 13 states. The parent company lists the benefits it expects but hasn't published results.