Drive-Thru AI Chatbot vs. Fast-Food Worker: We Tested the Tech | WSJ

Imagine the employees seeing Joanna multiple times at the same drive thru arguing with the AI 😂

I’m curious how accurate this system is for people with thick accents or for non-English speakers.

As a person who has worked in fast food, taking drive through orders was by far the worst and most stressful position. People not knowing what they wanted, hard to understand, changing their minds halfway through their orders, repeating orders back only to have the people change their minds again, and my favorite--ordering, confirming the order after repeating it back, getting the order only to say it was wrong after they got it. We were trained on all positions and would rotate through them--and the drive through was always the least desirable.

So as a Chick-fil-A employee but also as a total tech nerd here are my thoughts: First, in a two lane drive thru you have two people taking orders during peak hours. These people handle both drinks, desserts and your order at the same time (yes, it's a lot). Since somebody still has to handle drinks, that means using AI only gets rid of a single employee in any scenario. Second, I think fast food employees will be more than happy about this. Taking orders on the headset is easily the most difficult job we have because we juggle so many tasks at once. Being able to focus on drinks and desserts without handling orders would be a huge help for us. Finally, I think we'll also like this because we don't have to endure the abuse some people put us through. The hard part about taking orders on drive thru is that people don't treat you as a human because they're usually in a rush and they never see your face. Not being screamed at is a plus in my books.

Trust me No one spends a second more "chatting" with the fast food workers. 🤣🤣

I lol'ed so bad at "I have one peach pie", it's like the AI was making joke.

This lady is funny. I like her. More of her please.

Fast food workers in 2010: "We want $15/hr!" Fast food workers in 2024: "We want $20/hr!" Fast food workers in 2025: "Hello, I'm your AI order assistant. What can I get for you?"

The COO wasn’t being honest, hey have every intention of cutting labour, they are only understaffed because they don’t employ enough people as a means of reducing costs.

A CEO saying they are not gonna replace human labor is like a CEO saying We dont care about making money this quarter. Both are lies.

It failed the allergy test, i.e. the only test you gave it that could cause deaths, and you gave it a pass.

Saying they have no "intention" of cutting labor is corpo-speak for "not today but that's what will eventually happen".

I'm remembering that trick to honk the horn to skip the AI bots. LOL

They're not going to cut labor because they've already cut it. And it's not true that they won't cut it in the future once they figure out what an even slimmer crew can do

Would you like a peach pie? How bout a peach pie? Let’s get you a peach pie?

In corporate apeak, the COO is saying we are intentionally understaffing our restaurants and employ AI instead so we can get big bonuses down the line

Joanna Stern is priceless! Her reporting & stories are my WSJ favorites. Comical she gave in to the peach pie, I should have seen that coming. 😂

CEO 5:31 “we have no intention of cutting labor” 😂😂

So the conclusion is that Chatbot can finally take drive-thru orders? Other than the allergy issue, the bot seems to work fine. This seems more like an ad for AI than reporting on AI.

Any fast food worker would be glad to have a robot take away the customer facing part of the job. It's the worst part of the job