Taco Bell is dialing down its AI drive-thru experiment after reports of order mistakes and uneasy customer reactions, following a rollout to more than 500 locations in the U.S. The company found the voice assistant was error-prone, easily manipulated, and sometimes unsettling for customers, according to Gizmodo, which cites comments to the Wall Street Journal.
AI rollout meets real-world friction
Taco Bell’s Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Dane Mathews, told the Wall Street Journal the company is “learning a lot,” including that some customers intentionally tried to trip up the system with absurd orders like “18,000 cups of water.” Posts on Taco Bell’s Reddit community described incidents where the assistant allegedly told customers the restaurant was out of everything except drinks and sauce packets, and another where a request for a Chalupa Supreme with onions became three chalupas. In one case, an attempt to swap meat for beans was reportedly rejected by the system.
Despite these setbacks, Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum Brands, announced a partnership with Nvidia earlier this year aimed at improving the technology powering its AI operations, including automated order taking, Gizmodo notes.
Industrywide tests and mixed results
Fast-food chains across the U.S. have been testing similar systems. McDonald’s began introducing AI into operations to improve order accuracy, while Wendy’s partnered with Google to bring an AI chatbot to drive-thru windows and trained it on brand-specific shorthand like “JBC” for “junior bacon cheeseburger.” White Castle moved to expand AI to more than 100 drive-thrus via a collaboration with speech recognition company SoundHound.
Customer reactions and company reassessments
According to Gizmodo’s report, some of these initiatives have encountered familiar hurdles. McDonald’s reportedly pulled back on certain customer-facing AI after repeated order errors, and social media posts described Wendy’s AI as inaccurate or “creepy.”
Reflecting on Taco Bell’s own trial, Mathews told the Wall Street Journal that when restaurants are extremely busy with long lines, it may be preferable for human staff to handle orders. While the company is continuing to pursue AI improvements through its broader partnerships, the immediate lesson from the drive-thru pilot suggests the technology’s performance and customer comfort remain works in progress.
According to Gizmodo, similar experiments at other chains indicate the industry is still fine-tuning how and where AI can fit into fast-food ordering without compounding errors or frustrating customers.
