AI to Take Drive-Thru Orders at 500 Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut Spots

Yum! Brands, the parent company behind KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill, has announced a major partnership with NVIDIA to accelerate AI integration across its restaurants. The collaboration will bring AI-driven technologies to 500 locations by mid-2025, transforming operations and customer experiences.

AI in the Drive-Thru

As part of the initiative, Yum! Brands will deploy NVIDIA-powered voice AI agents to handle drive-thru orders. These conversational AI systems are designed to:

• Adapt to natural human speech patterns

• Understand complex menus and customer preferences

• Enable faster, more accurate ordering for a natural, seamless ordering experience

In addition, computer vision technology will optimize labor management and drive-thru efficiency through real-time analytics and alerts. AI-driven analytics will also provide restaurant managers with personalized actionable insights based on best practices from top-performing locations.

Partnership Details

The technology will be integrated into Yum!’s proprietary Byte by Yum!™ SaaS platform, which supports restaurant operations from ordering and delivery to inventory management. Yum! piloted the NVIDIA AI solutions at select Taco Bell and Pizza Hut locations, with plans to expand to 500 restaurants across all brands, including KFC and Habit Burger & Grill.

Joe Park, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Yum! Brands, emphasized the goal: “This partnership will enable us to harness the rich consumer and operational data sets on our Byte by Yum! integrated platform to build smarter AI engines that will create easier experiences for our customers and team members.”

Andrew Sun, NVIDIA’s Global Director of Retai, CPGl and QSR Business Development, added: “Our software makes it affordable for even the largest restaurant company to improve operations and customer experiences, proving AI can pay off at every location."

What’s Next for Yum!’s AI Strategy

Looking ahead, Yum! Brands plans to deploy advanced AI agents designed to plan, reason, and act across restaurant operations. These agents will assist team members with complex tasks, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency. Built on NVIDIA’s latest software, the AI technology will be proprietary to Yum!, giving the company full control to customize and evolve its platform. This foundation will allow Yum! to integrate more sophisticated models, such as large language models, enabling future innovations like sentiment analysis and personalized customer interactions.

Industry-Wide AI Adoption

Yum! Brands’ move follows similar AI experiments by other fast-food giants. Wendy’s plans to roll out voice-enabled AI at 600 locations after positive pilot results, while McDonald's ended its pilot program with IBM last year, citing mixed outcomes.

Public Reactions

As AI adoption increases, public response has been mixed. Some consumers welcome the efficiency, while others express concern over the replacement of human workers:

Looking Ahead

Yum! Brands’ AI expansion marks a significant step toward automating not just simple tasks, but complex decision-making processes within fast-food operations. By integrating AI agents capable of planning and reasoning, the company signals a shift toward more autonomous restaurant environments.

For customers, this embrace of AI could reshape the fast-food experience—offering quicker service, fewer order errors, and potentially even personalized interactions based on preferences. AI agents that understand natural speech and adapt in real time may make drive-thru visits smoother and more intuitive.

More broadly, this move reflects a growing trend across the fast-food industry: using AI not just to boost efficiency, but as a strategic tool to fundamentally reshape restaurant operations. Industry-wide, fast-food giants are no longer merely experimenting with AI—they’re embedding it into the core of their business models. By retaining full ownership of its proprietary AI systems, Yum! positions itself to continuously evolve its technology and potentially set new standards for AI-driven restaurant models worldwide.

What remains to be seen is how customers will respond long term—and whether the promised efficiency gains will outweigh concerns about the replacement of human workers and the changing nature of customer service.

Editor’s Note: This article was created by Alicia Shapiro, CMO of AiNews.com, with writing, image, and idea-generation support from ChatGPT, an AI assistant. However, the final perspective and editorial choices are solely Alicia Shapiro’s. Special thanks to ChatGPT for assistance with research and editorial support in crafting this article.