[josephwegner]

I will say, there is a Wendy’s near me that is piloting an AI drive-thru experience, and I prefer it 10-to-1 to the human version. It had a clear voice, it didn’t disappear randomly, it understood what I meant the first time (even though I was speaking naturally - I didn’t know at first it was AI), and it asked me for feedback (“what sort of sauce?”) in a very understandable way. Drive-thrus are famously a bad experience - I’m happy to see improvement here.

[eco]

I've had two interactions with Wendy's AI drive-through, and the first time I was pleasantly surprised, but the second time it would not stop suggesting add-ons after every single thing I said. It was comically pushy.

A human would have pretty quickly picked up on my increasingly exasperated "no, thanks" and stopped doing it, but the AI was completely blind to my growing frustration, following the upsell directive without any thought.

It reminded me of when I worked in retail as a kid and we were required to ask if they needed any batteries at checkout, even if they were just buying batteries. I learned pretty quickly to ignore that mandate in appropriate situations (unless the manager was around).

Makes me wonder how often employees are smart enough to ignore hard rules mandated by far-off management that would hurt the company's reputation if they were actually followed rigidly. AI isn't going to have that kind of sensitivity to subtle clues in human interaction for some time, I suspect.

[potato3732842]

It's the speed limit problem.

Everyone who's detached from reality whether an MBA in HQ or some two bit in the internet comment section who fancies themselves a central planner thinks that the problem is the people on the ground not following "the rules" when in reality "the rules", in just about any situation where there are rules are crap if followed and often themselves are knowingly crap written in response to other crap ("government says you need to tell you wear this PPE, no exception, yes we know you'll get heat stroke in some conditions, we're not checking <wink>" type stuff).

[Jordan-117]

That was my first thought as well. Every customer-facing job has ridiculous requirements from corporate that any employee with half a brain knows to skip. I wonder how much more exasperating customer service experiences will get with the proliferation of language models that don't know how to soft-pedal this stuff.

[Quarrelsome]

you've hit the nail on the head here. AI rollout has this hilarious consequence where "lower" departments have for a long time insultated the c-suite against their worst excesses and worst mistakes. Now that barrier is slowly crumbling due to AI-first, giving the c-suite an incredibly rare opportunity to discover how bad some of its ideas are in practice and there's less opportunity to blame those outcomes on others.

[blibble]

seems they took Dude, Where's My Car as an inspiration?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkdyU_eUm1U

[mildlyhostileux]

I'm optimistic that the ease of enforcing rules like this and better customer data (maybe via the apps) will lead to a better format. The annoyance grows from the rules causing us to be prompted to do or respond to things we don't want or need. When the taco bell guy asks if I want to add sour cream for the third time, I am getting pretty annoyed. I don't like sour cream, period. But every time they hit me with "would you like to double the chicken", even if I wasn't a yes upon driving to the window, I cave when they ask and both parties are probably happier for it. Management isn't totally wrong here because there are upsells that all of us would take when presented at the right time. It's a bit like ad targeting. Its just happening in realtime at the window.

So the problem in my mind is the format. How do you not ask 3 questions with every dish? Maybe the screens can help. Now that you have an AI that can follow the rules always and likely follow more complex decision trees quickly "at the window", it reasonable chains could start to dial in how this works to be more targeted and active vs passive at the right times.

[fouc]

I would hope you can actually skip that automatically by ignoring the follow-up and immediately driving off to the next stage.

If it knows what you asked for + sees you drove to the next stage, it should automatically finalize the order.

[Mistletoe]

I’ve always wondered if that battery spiel paid off. Do you have any stats? I never once was at Radio Shack and was like “yeah let me get some of your batteries” when they asked. Maybe I’m a fringe case.

[KoolKat23]

I'm very curious as to whether it'd listen or it's design even let's it listen to you if you tell it to stop upselling at the onset.

[redwall_hp]

I've had minimal contact with drive-thrus in the past decade, because ordering ahead online is superior in every way.

It's also parallelized instead of having a single queue.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Works when you actually have that option. Usually the only time I ever go to fast food places are late at night when everything else is closed. Most open-late fast food joints in smaller cities and towns will only have the drive through open, not the restaurant area.

[ssharp]

I've used the Tacbo Bel AI drive-thru and came away with the same thought. I kind of groaned at first but it was very accurate, even when making adjustments.

[PapaPalpatine]

I have never heard someone describe drive-thrus as a “famously bad experience.”

[BobbyTables2]

There’s a StarBucks near me that takes about 3-4 minutes per car at the drive thru. Frequently there would be 3-6 cars in line. Yes, people literally wait 15-20 minutes in line before they can even order, much less get their order.

Sure, maybe they’re just inefficient and shouldn’t be rewarded. However the people there are indeed working feverishly (and paid poorly).

Going inside and ordering isn’t any faster.

I’d put this in the “famously bad experience” category.

[acdha]

They’re usually a lot slower than going inside and people have been cracking jokes about the quality of the speakers since the 80s.

[Aurornis]

The poor quality of drive through communication is a common joke because it’s such a universal experience.

[wheelerwj]

Do you not know anyone who has been through an American drive-thru?