AI in Fast Food: Putting the Customer Before Profit

AI is becoming more prevalent in the restaurant industry, allowing employees to shift their focus while increasing profits and efficiency. With the pandemic, the fast food industry saw a huge increase in demand and can’t seem to keep up. Various forms of AI are being developed, implemented, and used to help offset this.

AI can simplify our lives, giving us the time and freedom to work on something a machine can’t do. When the fast food industry was impacted by the pandemic, restaurants needed to develop ways to keep up with demand. They began turning to AI features to streamline their businesses and uphold their respective industry standards. Big chains who pride themselves on efficiency, like McDonald’s and Domino’s, choose to use AI to increase the bottom line by keeping their respective technologies customer-facing. Customer-centric chains, like Starbucks, use AI to foster human interaction.

Starbucks brands themselves as a place to facilitate community while enjoying tasty and ethically-sourced products. To create a community, you need direct, personal human interaction. So, Starbucks doesn’t use AI like other big chains. Instead, their main AI program (aptly named Deep Brew) is used to foster human interactions. Starbucks uses AI in total conjunction with their baristas, allowing them to avoid time-consuming administrative tasks like making schedules, ordering products, and scheduling machine maintenance. This gives employees more time to interact directly with the customer, form relationships and facilitate repeat business. Creating an experience centered around both the product and the customer-barista interactions can almost ensure repeat business. Even though general sales declined during the pandemic, the average ticket price has increased, partly thanks to these direct and personal interactions.

Starbucks is currently developing a program to deepen the customer-barista experience by allowing baristas to maintain eye contact when taking an order. The AI would parse through the conversation to take a customer’s order directly. This is another example of how Starbucks prefers to use AI to strengthen human interactions.

On the other hand, McDonald’s also brands themselves as a convenient place to foster a community in a family-friendly and welcoming environment. However, the service and experience associated with McDonald’s completely goes against their advertised brand values. Personally, I don’t remember the last time I had a positive experience from a McDonald’s location. They continue to deepen the divide between customers and employees by having AI customer-facing with employees in the back. Although AI may help streamline service (like by suggesting items that won’t back up the kitchen for example), it isn’t giving clear or consistent benefits to its customers or employees. With that, what community could be fostered without human interaction?

It’s easy to replace human interaction with AI and call it “streamlining” or “raising efficiency”. Sometimes, that’s what the customer wants – an easy and fast service with little room for human error. However, it’s worth the time and investment, especially in the case of multi-billion dollar corporations, to attempt to integrate customer service and AI. Starbucks still has a streamlined pick-up method to avoid human interaction if that’s the customer’s preference. Their emphasis on customer service and human interaction still increases revenue while streamlining their business practices, something all restaurants should strive for. As a former barista and a current Starbucks lover, I’m excited to see where their perspective on AI integration takes them.