Burger King is piloting an OpenAI-powered voice chatbot called Patty in the headsets used by employees at 500 restaurants. Patty is part of the BK Assistant platform, which Burger King plans to launch on web and app to all restaurants in the US by the end of 2026.
Patty serves as the voice of the BK Assistant platform, which combines data across drive-thru conversations, kitchen equipment, inventory and other areas of the business. Employees can ask Patty questions, such as how many strips of bacon to put on a Maple Bourbon BBQ Whopper, or for instructions on how to clean the shake machine. Because it is integrated with the new cloud point-of-sale system, the assistant will also alert managers if a machine is down for maintenance or when an item is out of stock. Thibault Roux, Burger King's chief digital officer, said: “Within 15 minutes, the entire ecosystem will remove it from stock — whether you’re walking into a restaurant to order from the kiosk, whether you’re going to the drive-thru, the digital menu board will be updated.”
The platform will also evaluate employee interactions with customers for friendliness. Burger King compiled information from franchisees and guests on how to measure friendliness and trained its AI system to recognize certain words and phrases, such as “welcome to Burger King,” “please,” and “thank you.” Managers can then ask the assistant how their location is performing on friendliness. “This is all meant to be a coaching tool,” Roux said, adding that the company is iterating on capturing the tone of conversations as well.
Burger King is also testing AI drive-thru technology in fewer than 100 restaurants. “We’re tinkering with it, we’re playing around with it, but it’s still a risky bet,” Roux said.
Details
- City
- Miami
- Organization
- Burger King
- Continent
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Category