Voice Order with Generative AI and more
Voice order is a real trend in the restaurant world, especially in the drive thru lanes.Self service kiosks are beginning to use voice order and soon it will be one of the key accessibility components.
While conversational AI circa May 2023 is a hot topic and a big tool in the “buzz bag” aka “we plan on doing that”, conversational voice AI has finally reached actual deployments. Estimates and projections are fine but real data is what counts. Meanwhile Google and Microsoft battle for available oxygen in the AI space (aka what’s our stock price today….). Would be great too if multiple spoken languages auto-accepted.
Recent “big” buzz includes Wendy’s planning on a pilot with Google. Google has been taking quite a hit on its AI efforts compared to Microsoft so its not surprising that they would ramp up their “sure, we’re going to do that” news. Might have a ways to go to catch to the empirical data Valyant has been collecting for a couple of years. Better late than never…
- Millions of fast food workers could lose their jobs within 5 years. Here’s why
- Wendy’s Taps Google
- Queenie and Burger King video — imageHOLDERS and SapientX which will show at Tech Pavilion 6475 at NRA
- Excerpt from QSR Magazine — A growing number of quick-service chains have turned to AI at the drive-thru. In 2022, Checkers & Rally’s—in partnership with Presto—became the first chain to announce a nationwide rollout of a drive-thru AI solution. CKE Restaurants, parent of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., is experimenting with automated voice ordering solutions Presto, OpenCity, Valyant AI across the country. In addition, Del Taco revealed at the start of 2023 that it planned to expand its drive-thru AI testing with Presto. In June 2022, it was reported that McDonald’s conducted a 24-store pilot of drive-thru voice ordering in Illinois. Accuracy was in the low 80 percent range, below the 95 percent-plus mark the brand was looking for.
- Sixteen Nine (Digital Signage site) covered the press release by Google and Wendy’s completely – For that matter if you look at Google Cloud Press Corner it is nothing but AI. I think they are tired of hearing they are behind Microsoft. Will made to order voice ordering minimize digital menu boards.
- Carl’s Jr. showed the video of voice ordering
- New system out of Korea is outdoor dual 55s with built-in voice recognition. Autoformatting menus based on height. Pretty cool stuff. KISTI is funding.
- Conversational AI Kiosk – Valyant AI & KIOSK Information Systems
- AI Artificial Intelligence Conversational Chatbot Avatars by SapientX
- The Virtual Assistant Search Continues – Conversational AI in Grocery
- Kiosk Voice Recognition and KIosk Voice Command
- ChatGPT – How and Why for Digital Signage
- Hotel Check-In Kiosks HITEC
- Wendy’s POS System Case Study – Touch Screen POS
- So what about Amazon and Paneras?
- Virtual ordering agents and Wich Wich
- Disappointing or Reader Beware — QSR Magazine posted big story on tech trends coming in December 2022. Lots of big trigger phrases but zero mention of conversational AI. Ironically much of the content looks like it was written by conversational AI… — link
Resources
- A good discriminating microphone designed for ambient public use is a good start
Array Microphone - 2204-Accessible_Microphone_Array_Module_Brochure
- Storm Array Application Notes File-1580982788
- Interesting “teardown” of Google Mini listing many components
- How to read microphone specifications
More Posts
- Conversational AI – Coming to Retail Soon…(Opens in a new browser tab)
- SEO is not enough in the age of voice(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Off-Premise AI Robots Gaining Traction For Drive-Thru Automation(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Microsoft Showcase AI Retail Robot: Voice Interactive Vending – Technology News(Opens in a new browser tab)
More Posts on KI
- Conversational AI Kiosk – Valyant AI & KIOSK Information Systems(Opens in a new browser tab)
- AI Artificial Intelligence Conversational Chatbot Avatars by SapientX(Opens in a new browser tab)
- The Virtual Assistant Search Continues – Conversational AI in Grocery(Opens in a new browser tab)
- Drive Thru Kiosk AI – Good Times Voice AI Order Taking(Opens in a new browser tab)
Conversational AI Voice For Shopping Advice and Sprouts
New product released by Verneek — From retailsystems.org
Good conversation with Verneek, based in NYC. Their conversational AI has been deployed in supermarkets for 70+ days and getting feedback. Very impressive since dynamically generated answers are on the table and not picking from a stock stable.
The shopper scans a barcode and then conducts voice conversation with AI.
- No downloading of yet another app (eliminates app-fatigue)
- no typing, purely voice (but not exclusively). Women with long fingernails will like this…
- Multiple conditional factors don’t scare the AI
- No creepy avatar
- Mobile is required but stationary shopping stations (with print) are an option (ie kiosks)
- On tap is the ability to preset negative factors (e.g. never show me high sugar or high fructose for example)
- Can suggest “related deals” or better deals much like Amazon does.
- All in all, super-impressed with this first generation
- Available and shipping. Not the usual pre-release invest in me trial balloon.
- One side benefit to this is the enhancement provided to InstaCart-related picks. An employee must physically go out into the store and check stock and potential subs on a typical 5 item picklist. That eats up a ton of CPU cycles so to speak.
Note too that we have an additional demo video which is private but available on request. One of the best demos we have seen in our 30+ years we should add. [email protected] and identify yourself.