Taco Bell Wants AI to Take Your Drive-Thru Order—and People Aren’t Happy

When the fast-food industry isn’t trying to determine how best to stuff cheese into more cheese, it’s very good at finding ways to work as efficiently as possible.

Instead of an employee taking your order for Chalupas and a Baja Blast, some Taco Bell drive-thrus will have AI order-takers. In a press release, Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, says this will “optimize drive-thru efficiency,” but customers aren’t so sure.

What are people saying about Taco Bell’s AI drive-thru?

Taco Bell has already begun testing its AI technology in select drive-thrus—and the backlash has been swift.

On the Reddit community r/tacobell, users have expressed that the AI makes them “feel gross,” and some have threatened to leave Taco Bell behind rather than interact with AI. Over at r/Economics, one person was more introspective about losing the human touch:

“I’ve used it twice at Taco Bell and it worked fairly well without mistakes, albeit slow to complete order / repeated too much info,” the Redditor said. “Despite that, it made me feel kinda stupid and empty in the moment, creating a point of self-reflection: ‘I just ordered food talking to a robot […]'”

Will Taco Bell’s AI drive-thrus last?

Big Tech has entered the fast-food space in all kinds of ways. Flippy, a robotic fry cook, has been working at White Castle locations since 2022. In Fort Worth, Texas, McDonald’s has been testing a system that geolocates customers and only starts preparing food when you’re within a certain radius of the restaurant. Wendy’s tested drone delivery in Virginia.

That kind of technology generally appeals to customers. But AI voice ordering in the drive-thru stokes a unique level of ire.

For one thing, the very nature of voice recognition tech—recording a customer’s voice and studying the interaction for greater accuracy in the future—can feel like a violation of privacy. By using the drive-thru, customers effectively sign on to help train the AI when all they probably wanted was a Crunchwrap Supreme.

From everything we’ve seen up to this point in fast food’s Big Tech journey, AI’s voice recognition capabilities simply aren’t good enough for prime time. AI has a hard time processing accents, which is not great given that fast-food chains serve customers of every conceivable demographic.

AI also isn’t great at interpreting customized orders, such as meat substitutions or extra tortillas on the side—and Taco Bell’s menu is nothing if not a sandbox that invites customization.

Last year, McDonald’s ended its trial run of AI voice recognition in the drive-thru. TikTok has a library of viral videos that appear to show orders being bungled by the technology (and often rescued by human employees).

Taco Bell says its AI will provide a more natural ordering experience, but I’ll believe it when I can successfully order a Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito, sub shredded cheese for the nacho cheese sauce.