Sever your leg, please. It’s the greatest day.
Soon, your order will be taken by an AI chatbot. Or, at least, it will if you’re in the Wendy’s drive-through.
Wendy’s went to work with Google to train an AI chatbot to take orders, fine-tuning its large language model to cope with the ordering demands of the average American schmoe. It’ll even handle “unique terms, phrases and acronyms”, such as someone ordering a “JBC” (junior bacon cheeseburger) or a “Biggie Bag”. And according to Wendy’s chief executive Todd Penegor, the chatbot is so good, “you won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee.”
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, admitted that a drive-through AI presented some unique difficulties, describing it as “a very complicated technical problem.” Supposedly, however, the orderbot is fairly advanced, and even capable of handling a customer changing their mind partway through ordering. It will also, of course, promote the daily specials and try to upsell as hard as possible; little different from how things are now, but probably more intelligible than the usual drive-through worker depending on your location.
They’re starting the chatbot off in a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio this June. They’re probably not going to give a specific date for when it starts given that whole “you won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee” bit. Who knows, maybe they’ll give it a personality at some point.
Source: PC Mag
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