United StatesFood and restaurants2023 – ongoingWendy's
FreshAI drive-thru voice ordering
Wendy's expanded FreshAI drive-thru ordering to over 160 US restaurants
Problem
Drive-thru employees had to take orders while maintaining service speed and order accuracy. Wendy's wanted staff to spend more time fulfilling orders.
Approach
Wendy's began testing FreshAI with Google Cloud in 2023. The voice system automated drive-thru ordering and offered suggestions based on customer orders. By May 2025, executives reported deployment at over 160 US restaurants.
Results
Takeaway
The rollout established use beyond an initial pilot. Expansion beyond 500 restaurants remained a year-end target.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Food and restaurants
- Business function
- Customer serviceProduction and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Conversational and voice AIGenerative AI
- Adoption
- Partner co-development
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
Restaurant Dive reported executives' disclosure that FreshAI operated at over 160 restaurants. Wendy's targeted more than 500 installations during 2025 and described improvements without quantified order-accuracy or efficiency results.
Full details are in the original sources.