“Before I can even finish ordering the burrito I’m getting interrupted to ask if I want jalapeños on it. No. Sour cream?? No, thank you. Upgrade the meat? NO, for #$% sake. I haven’t even gotten to the tacos yet.
So I drive away. Hopefully Burger King doesn’t ask so many questions and interrupt me while ordering.”
As Taco Bell aggressively expands its drive-thru AI to over 1,000 restaurants, frustrated customers have been posting versions of this story on Reddit.
AI is great at upselling. Taco Bell’s vendor says its “dynamic, context-aware” technology gets customers to spend more.
But an AI who really, really, really wants you to add a drink may make customers miss the teenager with a headset.
Can AI take your order?
The early years of AI drive-thru were known for viral fail videos of 260 chicken nuggets and 12,000 cups of water.
Companies quietly stuck with it. About 6% of US fast-food restaurants use AI voice. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King have the technology as well.
The technology has improved a lot. In 2026 order accuracy rose to 90.8%, slightly better than the US restaurant average. It’s gotten friendlier and makes customers repeat themselves less often.
But it still isn’t seamless. The number of customers who found voice AI difficult or frustrating almost tripled in 2026. It especially struggles with substitutions, customizations, and questions. Those should improve but AI voice will need human oversight for the foreseeable future.
“#@%$ you at the drive-thru”
In Lethal Weapon 2, Joe Pesci gets stuck with a tuna sandwich he didn’t order. His f-bomb filled rant is almost 40 years old, but it still hits home for Mom or Dad picking up the family dinner.
The drive-thru is supposed to be a quick pull-through. Often it isn’t.
At the speaker you might wait for a busy employee, yell into a scratchy mic, or have to explain you wanted large fries and a small Coke instead of a small fries and a large Coke. At the window, you might be asked to pull over because your fries are still cooking. At home, you might have to convince your six-year-old to eat nuggets with ketchup because their BBQ sauce didn’t make it in the bag.
An AI who is available immediately, speaks in perfect English (or Spanish, or German) and gets your order right the first time would be a dream.
Surveys show 74% of consumers prefer human order takers. But that could easily flip given the two factors they care about most are speed and order accuracy. An AI that improves both would be welcome.
Chick-fil-A keeps it human
One company bucking the AI voice trend is Chick-fil-A. CEO Andrew Cathy said they won’t use AI order takers because the company wants to deliver a human connection.
Chick-fil-A is an outlier. Its drive-thru customer satisfaction is the highest in the industry despite having the longest wait times.
They aren’t anti-tech though. Many of its restaurants have employees stand outside and take orders on tablets instead of making customers yell into the void. This “Face-to-Face Ordering” with a human personally verifying your order makes the wait pass quicker than staring at brake lights from the car ahead of you.
Do you want churros with that?
Taco Bell isn’t Chick-fil-A. It’s known for cheap food you can get fast.
The company touts AI to improve speed and accuracy, but upselling may be the most lucrative benefit. Taco Bell’s AI leads to 5-10% larger check sizes. In the food industry, even a 1% improvement in sales would make a CFO salivate.
But while order speed and accuracy are a win-win, repeated upselling makes Taco Bell money by pestering its its customers.
One employee described how they loved the drive-thru window before AI. They would joke with customers and make sure orders were correct. Now their store tracks how often workers interrupt the AI, and marks them down for it. Instead of stepping in when an AI badgers a customer ordering a single taco with offer after offer, they stand by and watch.
QSR magazine’s annual drive-thru study calls this the “hospitality gap.” When AI took the order, employees handing out food were less friendly and said “thank you” 24% less often because they were less invested.
Remember Rule #1
As a teenager I worked in the McDonald’s drive-thru. I was supposed to upsell customers, but I often forgot or offered the wrong thing. I never pitched a second item after a customer said no. Over time, I got tired of a hundred “Nos” a night.
AIs won’t get too busy or forget the script. They’ll know which customer to offer nachos and which to offer churros. They don’t mind being rejected, and will keep pitching no matter how annoyed the customer gets.
Taco Bell has a choice. They can use AI order takers to make the drive-thru faster and better.
Or they can use it to piss off their customers.
Dad Joke: Where do witches go to top off their cauldrons? The Drive-Brew.
You strike me as a man who might enjoy this comedy sketch:
https://youtu.be/HbDnxzrbxn4?is=BBrbUVXuFVDBqDwm