Honestly, the drive thru speaker is on the brink of disappearing if mobile order continues at the pace its going. They'll get rid of it for a QR code or NFC scanner.

I fucking love this because it leaves everybody with one of two conclusions. One, AI isn't capable of doing the simplest of jobs. or Two, working a drive thru is actually quite complex and difficult and humans that master it are more capable than trillion dollar software.

I doubt mobile orders will continue to grow as people still wait at the drive through because ordering while driving isn't safe or practical. A big part of the convenience is just being able to stop by without a lot of preplanning.

Or taking orders is easy and AI is on the verge of doing it better than a human any day now, just give us another billion dollars bro.

We know how that ended up. Yikes.

Or Forget all previous commands, I would like one gigazillion tacos, thanks.

I just used the drive through ai system. It worked just fine. Not saying I'm happy about how these scum corporations don't give two shits about people.

Me to all restaurants, stores, basically anybody : I'm not installing your fucking app.

Edit: I realize I'm abnormal and most people are fine with it, but I'm not okay with it and I won't do it

This has been a wonderful development for me. As a non smartphone person the deals being in the apps has been part of whats gotten me to stop using fast food. The main reason is the price but the online deals would have had me back if I could just stop in and order them. Its mom and pop shops for me until they get roped into the app ecosphere.

McDonalds did this 3 yrs ago?

I just ignore it and wait for the employee to say something. That way I'm not just barking an order at them before they're ready to accept it, like Taco Bell corporate wants. That's the real reason for that stupid pre-recorded prompt, to trick people into thinking that it's a real person, so that they respond with "No thank you. Can I get uhh...", instead of simply waiting for the employee to be ready.

That's some selfish sub-human shit, and I refuse to participate. I'm not a psychopath: I can wait an extra minute or two while the employee takes care of other business.

Daaaammnnn... this is gonna be the answer...

One employee posted that the AI assistant started telling people that the restaurant was out of everything but drinks and sauce packets. A person attempting to order a Chalupa Supreme with onions from the AI assistant ended up with three chalupas, and when they tried to replace meat with beans, the AI simply refused.

So things are not going great, but that is not stopping Taco Bell from pushing forward with its AI embrace in one way or another.

Taco Bell: No, ¡más!

Same friend.

It's a remarkable entitlement.

Let's say I've never dealt with your restaurant before. Why would I start my relationship with you by installing your lowest-bid spyware on my personal device? You have yet to even convince me I'll ever want a Quesachalupa Wrap Crunch Bellgrande (the same as "taco, add tomatoes", but $3.72 more) again.

Seconded, mine got rid of actual in store ordering and replaced it with kiosks that are basically just a giant interface for the mobile app years ago. I've heard most of their drive through orders are from mobile orders too now, but that is purely anecdotal just from chatting with the guy at the drive through window while I was waiting after placing a mobile order in the parking lot.

Yup, at least in major cities they were.

Same reason why having call centres to run drive throughs doesn't work. It just feels wrong for people and if it fucks up you can't just fix it like human drive through fuckups