McDonald's kicked off the AI drive-thru trend in 2021, becoming one of the first major fast-food chains to deploy voice-ordering chatbots at its locations. The company started small, testing the technology at just 10 restaurants in Chicago. McDonald's had been building toward this moment since acquiring Apprente, a voice-based conversational technology startup, back in 2019. The burger giant later partnered with IBM to help scale the automated ordering system across more locations.
Following McDonald's lead, other chains quickly jumped on board. Checkers and Rally's teamed up with AI company Presto in 2022 to install chatbots at all corporate-owned drive-thrus across the United States. The goal was twofold: boost sales by upselling customers and improve order accuracy. The company also framed the technology as a way to "free up staff for more people-dependent areas of their business."
Wendy's entered the race in 2023, launching its "FreshAI" chatbot at a single drive-thru location in Columbus, Ohio. Working with Google, the chain trained its AI on Wendy's-specific terminology so the system could understand that customers ordering a "milkshake" actually want a "Frosty," and that "JBC" refers to a junior bacon cheeseburger. The rollout proved successful — within months, Wendy's reported the AI achieved 86 percent accuracy without requiring employee intervention, prompting the company to expand the technology to additional locations.
Taco Bell was conducting similar tests around the same time and announced plans to roll out its Voice AI system to hundreds of US locations by the end of 2024. Like its competitors, Taco Bell emphasized the technology's potential to streamline operations while freeing up workers to focus on in-store tasks. The fast-food industry's rapid adoption of drive-thru AI signals a broader shift toward automating routine customer interactions, with major chains betting that conversational AI can boost efficiency and cut costs at thousands of locations nationwide.