White Castle tests AI bots at drive-thru

White Castle is among a handful of QSR chains testing chatbots to collect orders at their drive through. Customer feedback has been … mixed.

Julia, who works the drive-through at a White Castle in Merrillville, Ind., is in many ways a model employee: polite, prompt and doesn’t mind working the overnight shift. 

Still, something seemed off to John Lewis, a retired carpenter from nearby Lowell. For one thing, he had to repeat his order for onion rings. For another, Julia wasn’t human. Julia is among a freshman class of artificial-intelligence enabled chatbots being put to work in fast-food drive-throughs.

Restaurant executives say Julia, as White Castle’s system is called, and its chatbot colleagues can make their restaurants more efficient and free up often-scarce workers to do other jobs. The jury is still out with customers. 

“It’s a pain in the butt,” said Lewis, after collecting his order. 

Full story at Wall Street Journal.