I’m still skeptical. I’m willing to bet that these systems work well in vaccum, but I suspect that they will struggle with things like accent recognition, order changes, and novel questions. Even if the tech really does work well in the field, they’re all working on brand new hardware, and I’m curious to see how well they take orders on a microphone that’s been exposed to the elements and car exhaust for a few years. I suspect that these will wind up like the self-checkout lane; more efficient when it’s working well, but requiring too much human supervision to be a real replacement for anything.
I don’t think the microphone quality will be an issue. Drive through intercom systems have been around a while.
Accents might be, but that was an issue with things like Siri since the beginning and I can only imagine the technology has gotten better.
I would expect the AI to integrate with a real person in case there are issues with the AI understanding the order.
Unrelated to fast food, I think this technology is going to be implemented in a lot of places. An insurance company receiving an email with a description about a claim, for instance, will automatically put the claim in the system with all the details from the email. A user will do a follow up for accuracy, but as time goes on and that gets more dependable, the user will be much less necessary for this…
Yeah, my understanding is that they’re integrated right now, with drive-thru attendants jumping in when the AI fails. That’s why I think the tech won’t actually change things fundamentally for the industry; if someone that has to be able to drop what they’re doing and jump on the intercom at a moments notice, it’s not like that job can be eliminated. When self-checkout lanes were introduced, people thought they would take over super markets and eliminate hundreds of jobs, but very few companies fully committed to them, and they’ve become a supplement, not a substitute.
What you’re describing with claim emails seems much more feasible than replacing real-time human interactions, but I wonder how many companies would prefer to have AI parse through emails. It seems like that would be more efficient and accurate (at least for the company) to just force customers to manually enter their claim details into an online portal, and call me cynical, but I can’t see insurance companies being all that motivated to make filing claims easier and faster for consumers. I bet that kind of tech would be very desirable in sales though, where a customer could just send an email and receive an AI generated quote.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about replacing employees, at least initially. You’ll still have a cashier who would likely serve the role you described. But instead of getting to the speaker and having somebody say “please hold” while they’re taking cash, the AI will start the order and get it right most of the time.
For the insurance example, not every insurance company has a portal. Many types of insurance are too unique to warrant building a portal. But parsing an email rather than building a front facing user interface is so much cheaper and easier. I just used this example cause I’m familiar with a similar project…
Oh, interesting, I didn’t consider that it could actually be cheaper than building an user-intake system, but that makes sense. I’m not sure how much more efficient AI will make the drive-thru experience though; it will free up a cashier a bit, but generally cashiers are already doing something else when they’re not busy, and when they are busy most of the slowdown is on food prep, not ordering. I know McDonald’s is experimenting with fully automated kitchen, so maybe that’s around the corner, but that’s a whole other can of worms in terms of quality and safety.
I’m still skeptical. I’m willing to bet that these systems work well in vaccum, but I suspect that they will struggle with things like accent recognition, order changes, and novel questions. Even if the tech really does work well in the field, they’re all working on brand new hardware, and I’m curious to see how well they take orders on a microphone that’s been exposed to the elements and car exhaust for a few years. I suspect that these will wind up like the self-checkout lane; more efficient when it’s working well, but requiring too much human supervision to be a real replacement for anything.
I don’t think the microphone quality will be an issue. Drive through intercom systems have been around a while.
Accents might be, but that was an issue with things like Siri since the beginning and I can only imagine the technology has gotten better.
I would expect the AI to integrate with a real person in case there are issues with the AI understanding the order.
Unrelated to fast food, I think this technology is going to be implemented in a lot of places. An insurance company receiving an email with a description about a claim, for instance, will automatically put the claim in the system with all the details from the email. A user will do a follow up for accuracy, but as time goes on and that gets more dependable, the user will be much less necessary for this…
Yeah, my understanding is that they’re integrated right now, with drive-thru attendants jumping in when the AI fails. That’s why I think the tech won’t actually change things fundamentally for the industry; if someone that has to be able to drop what they’re doing and jump on the intercom at a moments notice, it’s not like that job can be eliminated. When self-checkout lanes were introduced, people thought they would take over super markets and eliminate hundreds of jobs, but very few companies fully committed to them, and they’ve become a supplement, not a substitute.
What you’re describing with claim emails seems much more feasible than replacing real-time human interactions, but I wonder how many companies would prefer to have AI parse through emails. It seems like that would be more efficient and accurate (at least for the company) to just force customers to manually enter their claim details into an online portal, and call me cynical, but I can’t see insurance companies being all that motivated to make filing claims easier and faster for consumers. I bet that kind of tech would be very desirable in sales though, where a customer could just send an email and receive an AI generated quote.
I don’t think it’s necessarily about replacing employees, at least initially. You’ll still have a cashier who would likely serve the role you described. But instead of getting to the speaker and having somebody say “please hold” while they’re taking cash, the AI will start the order and get it right most of the time.
For the insurance example, not every insurance company has a portal. Many types of insurance are too unique to warrant building a portal. But parsing an email rather than building a front facing user interface is so much cheaper and easier. I just used this example cause I’m familiar with a similar project…
Oh, interesting, I didn’t consider that it could actually be cheaper than building an user-intake system, but that makes sense. I’m not sure how much more efficient AI will make the drive-thru experience though; it will free up a cashier a bit, but generally cashiers are already doing something else when they’re not busy, and when they are busy most of the slowdown is on food prep, not ordering. I know McDonald’s is experimenting with fully automated kitchen, so maybe that’s around the corner, but that’s a whole other can of worms in terms of quality and safety.