Taco Bell’s voice AI expansion shows the drive-thru has entered a new phase

Taco Bell expanded voice-AI ordering to more than 890 U.S. restaurants in 38 states through its Omilia partnership. Mystery-shopper tests showed the AI required employee help for only 3% of orders, compared with 30% at Taco Bell and 33% at Wendy’s, while cutting service time by 40 seconds and maintaining full speaker clarity. Hi Auto’s platform now handles over 100 million drive-thru orders yearly across roughly 1,000 quick-service locations worldwide.