This wave of new tech goes beyond robotic arms and simulated voices taking orders at the drive-thru. “A machine can actually have a consistent greeting and remain calm under pressure.” “Humans sometimes forget to greet people, they forget, they make mistakes, they don’t hear as well,” Lucy Brady, McDonald’s chief digital customer engagement officer, told CNN. Mcdonald’s has also been trialing AI technology, which its execs believe, in some ways, is better at handling customer interactions than humans.
The company said this is the first of what could potentially be many locations that use the technology. Last month Wendy’s announced a new partnership with Google in which they are piloting a new generative AI solution called Wendy’s Fresh AI in a drive-thru in Columbus, Ohio. Big chains ranging from Chipotle to Sweetgreen to McDonald’s are experimenting with ways to automate their restaurants.Īnd then there’s AI.
All one has to do is scan the headlines for the past 12 months to find that the restaurant industry has caught automation fever. It wasn’t a huge dip – 800 jobs – but compared to the previous month’s gain of 24 thousand and monthly gains as high as 81 thousand at the beginning of the year, the dip was somewhat surprising, especially as restaurant sales have slowly but surely inched upwards throughout the year.Ĭould this be a temporary setback? Perhaps, but there’s also a possibility that it’s an early indicator of a long-term, potentially irreversible decline in the restaurant industry’s job market as emerging technologies come into play.Īnd by new technologies, I primarily mean automation and artificial intelligence. Last month, after 29 months straight of job gains, the number of total available restaurant jobs dropped.
0 kommentar(er)
