The Drive-Thru Voice Was Never Human, and Nobody Noticed
Taco Bell just confirmed AI voice ordering now runs at 890 of its US drive-thru lanes, over 10 percent of all locations, while Dairy Queen expands to 25 states and White Castle's AI, nicknamed Julia, greets 12 percent of its customers. What started in 2023 as viral fails, like an AI adding 260 McNuggets to one order, has quietly matured into standard infrastructure. Fast food chains say it's faster and better at upselling than humans, and most customers don't even notice anymore, they just get their Blizzard.
Nothing says 'innovation' like replacing a teenager's first job with a suspiciously polite robot that still can't stop upselling Snickers.