Wendys home of the Frosty and the four-cornered burger announced a deal Tuesday that caught our eye. The fast-food chain is partnering with Google Cloud to transform the drive-thru experience as you know it.<\/p>\n
As in, voice-recognition software that takes your order directly to cooks, avoiding the whole shouting-at-the-drive-thru-menu thing, or that can politely predict when you might want your next Baconator combo. <\/p>\n
Its all part of how the pandemic has forged an even stronger relationship between tech and fast food.<\/p>\n
Quincy McClendon hits the drive-thru at a Wendys near Sacramento, California, about twice a week for breakfast. Hes a big fan of the sausage-croissant combo. But he likes it a certain way: No egg, well done on the sausage.<\/p>\n
McClendon said hes never had much of a problem with this order. But imagine a world where Wendys knew McClendon didnt want an egg just by looking at him.<\/p>\n
Data collection is kind of where the industry is headed, including using tech to predict drive-thru habits, according to Eric Gonzalez, an analyst at KeyBanc, which provides investment-banking services to Wendys.<\/p>\n
They know your license plate number or they have your facial recognition so your previous orders [are] all loaded into the algorithm, he said.<\/p>\n
To be clear, none of those are things that Wendys or Google has talked about yet, but they already know what you want and when, Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n
You know, they say, Well, this guy comes at 2:30 in the morning every Friday night. Maybe he wants the same thing he had last weekend,' he said.<\/p>\n
Wendys and other fast-food chains are trying out new tech for more pressing reasons: the labor shortage.<\/p>\n
Consumers may be happier with a speedier drive-thru, said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But it comes with a cost.<\/p>\n
Over the last four decades, we have been investing more and more in automation, technologies, and that has been associated with much greater inequality, he said. <\/p>\n
Acemoglu doesnt think Wendys will have anyone tending its drive-thrus in five years.<\/p>\n
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You do want fries with that: Wendys and Google bet on drive-thru AI - Marketplace<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wendys home of the Frosty and the four-cornered burger announced a deal Tuesday that caught our eye. The fast-food chain is partnering with Google Cloud to transform the drive-thru experience as you know it. As in, voice-recognition software that takes your order directly to cooks, avoiding the whole shouting-at-the-drive-thru-menu thing, or that can politely predict when you might want your next Baconator combo Continue reading