5 Fast Food Chains That Have Already Started Using AI

It's pretty insidious how artificial intelligence is managing to invade every aspect of our lives. You can't even Google "chicken recipes" without some chatbot chiming in. Worse yet, once you find what you're looking for, the recipes may be AI-generated, which means they weren't tested beforehand. Apparently, AI foodbots are even publishing mushroom-foraging guides with unsafe advice. (Eek.) So it's no surprise AI is also making inroads in the restaurant industry, to the point where it's now been adopted by a number of fast-food chains.

There are stand-alone restaurants that incorporate high tech, too, like the Arizona ramen restaurant that has a cat-shaped robot waiter. However, fast food chains in particular seem to be adopting AI at a rapid pace that may transform the entire industry more quickly than we can imagine. Why is this happening? Restaurant spokespeople may boast that AI equals a better customer experience, although results, so far, are mixed. Nevertheless, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. Restaurant chains are in it for the money, honey, since any task that can be outsourced to a robot means that the owners don't have to pay a human to do it. AI is also collecting tons of customer data, so restaurants can figure out even more ways to get their hands on our ever-dwindling discretionary funds.

Should you aspire to work at Chipotle, you'll begin by interacting with AI. The chain is constantly hiring new employees — fast food industry turnover being what it is — and may take on up to 10,000 new workers each year. In order to streamline the hiring process, applying for a job now starts with talking to a bot. If you're put off by the idea, you don't want to know that the chain calls its AI hiring platform Ava Cado.

If you don't mind interacting with chatbots, though, Ava Cado doesn't seem to be too difficult to work with. It asks applicants a few questions about themselves, informs them about the job they're applying for, and then, should they wish to proceed, schedules an interview. There might be some breakdown in communication, however, as one Redditor spoke of showing up for a bot-scheduled appointment that the manager hadn't been informed of. Kind of awkward, but they got the job anyway.

Once you start working at Chipotle, you may still be interacting with cutesy-named robots. One of them, called Chippy, makes the tortilla chips. Another, the Autocado, peels, pits, and slices the avocados intended for guacamole. Human employees still get to mash them, though, if that's any consolation.

Mickey D's first dipped a toe into the AI pool in 2019, the year it created McD Tech Labs. The following year, it trumpeted a strategy called "Accelerating the Arches," which involved incorporating more digital technology into day-to-day operations. By 2025, it announced that all stores worldwide (some 43,000 in all) would start using artificial intelligence in some form or other.

So what, exactly, will AI be doing underneath those Golden Arches? One plan is to use it to address the great broken McFlurry machine dilemma that is ongoing. With AI sensors, the soft-serve machines, as well as the fryers, can alert employees of needed maintenance and potential failures. Voice AI is also being integrated into drive-thru operations and in-store kiosk ordering, while smart cameras are meant to help ensure order accuracy.

Interestingly enough, despite being a mega-corporation with the resources to develop its own in-house technology, McDonald's has been outsourcing some of its AI operations to Google Cloud since 2023, after a not-so-successful run of using IBM voice technology for taking drive-thru orders. We don't yet know the extent of the ramifications of this partnership, but if you're suddenly seeing ads for that Big Mac you just ordered popping up all over Chrome, it's probably not a coincidence.

Starting in 2024, Taco Bell rolled out AI voice ordering technology at over 500 drive-thrus. By the fall of 2025, it was already having second thoughts due to some well-publicized glitches. One of these incidents involved someone who ordered 18,000 water cups, which seemingly caused the bot to glitch. Another viral video, which has racked up over 4.6 million views so far, shows a drive-thru customer ordering a drink, and the bot immediately asks what they'd like to drink with that. (Steering wheel punching ensues.) One Redditor, however, reported that they had successfully "ordered" a real human to help them.

The last we heard of the issue was that Taco Bell was apparently reconsidering its AI experiment. It may not abandon the concept altogether, but at this point, the chain is conceding that it can't entirely do away with human assistance in the drive-thru. At least, not yet. Which leaves us with the ethical dilemma: Do we hope and pray that AI technology gets better, so we can actually get the items we order? Or do we hope it keeps dropping the ball so that people's jobs can be saved?

In June 2023, Wendy's first started test-marketing its FreshAI drive-thru ordering bots, which, like McDonald's system, are partially powered by Google Cloud. Almost two years later, the chain was sufficiently satisfied with the results and announced plans to expand the initial 100 AI-staffed drive-thrus to include an additional 500 nationwide. In addition to just taking your order, FreshAI has an additional annoying feature: It's programmed to upsell you extra items so as to pad your bill. Nice for Wendy's stockholders, but not so great for anyone who needs to pinch their pennies but is too polite to argue with a robot.

Customers, needless to say, haven't been entirely on board with Wendy's AI ordering. Redditors spoke of being misinterpreted and interrupted, as well as struggling to explain to a bot how to customize an order. Others expressed concerns over whether AI can interpret regional accents, and one person with a stutter noted that AI speech recognition never worked for them. Yet another Reddit user pointed out that the menu includes a disclaimer saying that your voice is being recorded and your data collected, which may be kind of creepy for anyone with privacy issues.

Unlike the other chains on this list, Juici Patties is relatively tiny — to date, it has just six locations in New York, 14 in Florida, and about 60 in Jamaica. Even so, it's on our radar because of the innovative menu. Instead of burgers, it specializes in Jamaican-style patties (beef, chicken, and vegan), and the sides include fried plantains and coco bread.

The chain is very much a customer-oriented, family-run enterprise. Interestingly enough, though, it also makes no secret of its heavy AI usage, something that conspicuously lacks that personal touch. In fact, as soon as you open the website, a chatbot pops up to obscure part of the screen, and it takes several clicks and some waiting time before it finally goes away. AI is also used as a tool for communicating with franchisees, including both training them and dunning them for whatever money they owe corporate HQ. AI helps the chain to determine the most profitable potential locations for opening a new store, too, as well as predicting what items customers are going to want to order and what supplies are needed to make them. To date, however, there's only one Juici Patties drive-thru in the U.S., located in Davie, Florida. It's unclear as to whether a bot takes your order there, but you do still get handed your food by a human, so there's that.