{"id":189996,"date":"2025-08-30T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/30\/taco-bell-is-having-second-thoughts-about-relying-on-ai-at-the-drive-through-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:50:00","slug":"taco-bell-is-having-second-thoughts-about-relying-on-ai-at-the-drive-through-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/30\/taco-bell-is-having-second-thoughts-about-relying-on-ai-at-the-drive-through-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Taco Bell is having second thoughts about relying on AI at the drive-through\u00a0 | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taco Bell\u2019s chief digital officer says the company is having an \u201cactive conversation\u201d about when to use and not to use AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company has apparently rolled out voice AI-powered ordering at more than 500 drive-throughs, leading to unflattering viral moments like someone <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/FDZj6DCWlfc\" target=\"_blank\">ordering 18,000 water cups<\/a> in order to \u201cbypass\u201d the AI and get connected to a human server.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chief Digital and Technology Officer <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/taco-bell-rethinks-future-of-voice-ai-at-the-drive-through-72990b5a\" target=\"_blank\">Dane Matthews told The Wall Street Journal<\/a> that even he has mixed experiences with technology: \u201cSometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, it sounds like Taco Bell is still deciding how broadly to deploy AI at the drive-through, with leeway for different franchisees to do things their own way. For example, rather than relying on AI exclusively, Matthews said it might make sense to have a human handle drive-through orders at busy restaurants with long lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor our teams, we\u2019ll help coach them: at your restaurant, at these times, we recommend you use voice AI or recommend that you actually really monitor voice AI and jump in as necessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/08\/30\/taco-bell-is-having-second-thoughts-about-relying-on-ai-at-the-drive-through\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taco Bell\u2019s chief digital officer says the company is having an \u201cactive conversation\u201d about when to use and not to use AI. The company has apparently rolled out voice AI-powered ordering at more than 500 drive-throughs, leading to unflattering viral moments like someone ordering 18,000 water cups in order to \u201cbypass\u201d the AI and get [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}