Quick Service Restaurant Chains Are Using AI to Fix the Part Customers Actually See
"Operators recognize that the next phase of growth will come from modernizing how restaurants run across every channel."
For years, AI investment in quick-service restaurants has been focused on inventory forecasting, equipment maintenance, and back-of-house scheduling.
A wave of AI deployments across the industry's largest chains is now targeting the customer experience directly including order tracking, drive-thru voice ordering, loyalty personalisation, and dispatch routing.
According to Qu's 2026 Restaurant Technology Benchmark Report, which surveyed 168 brands representing 94,000 locations, 57% of operators report a decline in guest traffic, rising to 67% among quick-service restaurants. Pre-tax profit margins across the industry remain around 4%.
Kate Fairweather, Head of Consumer Strategy and a founding Partner at Electric Innovation has described the current period as the third wave of reinvention in the industry, following the physical expansion era of 1950 to 1990 and the digital development era of the 2000s, defined by a move from reactive service models to anticipatory, customer-facing AI experiences powered by voice ordering, real-time data, and loyalty personalisation.
A Deloitte survey of restaurant executives found that 82% plan to increase AI investment in the next fiscal year. Customer experience is the top priority for 60% of those respondents, ahead of restaurant operations at 36% and loyalty programs at 31%.
An InTouch Insight 2025 Drive-Thru Study, which included AI-enabled locations of Taco Bell and Wendy's alongside traditional drive-thrus, found that AI-enabled lanes produced overall customer satisfaction scores 6% points higher than non-AI lanes, with faster service times and more frequent upselling.
Drive-thru orders account for more than 70% of sales at many top QSR chains, according to the same study.
What the Chains Are Deploying
The deployments below reflect how the industry's largest operators are putting that shift into practice, moving AI from back-of-house systems into tools that customers interact with directly.
On March 24, Domino's announced an update to its Tracker, the order-status tool it launched in 2008 that has since monitored more than 2.5 billion orders.
The updated Tracker runs on DomOS, Domino's proprietary operating platform, using a custom AI order-tracking engine that blends real-time inputs from store team members with machine learning models to produce more accurate time estimates for delivery and pickup.
The company also added Live Activities support for iOS users, allowing order progress updates to appear on the iPhone lock screen without opening the app.
Alongside the Tracker update, Domino's is testing a smart dispatch system in six stores that monitors driver availability and holds orders in the queue if a driver is not expected to be back in time. Domino's generated more than 85% of its US retail sales in 2025 through digital channels, according to its March 2026 press release.
"For 18 years, we've been providing customers with the ability to track every step of their order," said Mark Messing, Domino's Vice President of Global Digital Marketing. "Domino's was one of the first to launch what has become the gold standard in customer convenience across numerous industries."
Wendy's deployed its FreshAI voice ordering system to more than 160 US drive-thru locations as of its Q1 2025 earnings call, with initial plans to reach over 500 locations, according to CEO Kirk Tanner.
FreshAI automates the drive-thru ordering process. Tanner said the company's app updates, including gamification features and personalized digital messaging, drove its digital mix to a record of more than 20% of total sales in Q1 2025.
Wendy's is also deploying smart delivery scales to verify that customers receive all items ordered before the order leaves the restaurant, according to the company.
Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, partnered with Nvidia in 2025 to deploy AI capabilities at 500 restaurants, with a focus on drive-thru voice ordering and computer vision.
The rollout is part of Yum's Byte by Yum technology platform, which consolidates its restaurant technology stack across its global network of more than 55,000 locations. Taco Bell began expanding its AI drive-thru ordering system across US locations in 2024 and continued the rollout into 2025.
Digital sales across Yum's brands grew 25% year over year, with digital mix approaching 60%, according to CEO Christopher Turner on the company's Q4 2025 earnings call. Turner said AI-driven personalisation at Taco Bell contributed to higher visit frequency among younger guests.
Starbucks has embedded its AI platform, Deep Brew, into its customer-facing loyalty and recommendation systems. The company's Starbucks Rewards program reported 34.6 million active 90-day members in the US as of Q1 fiscal year 2025, up 1% year over year, according to the official press release.
Deep Brew analyses data from the Starbucks mobile app and point-of-sale systems to generate personalised drink recommendations and tailor offers for individual members. The company is also piloting voice-activated ordering under CEO Brian Niccol as part of its ongoing digital transformation.
The National Restaurant Association's State of the Restaurant Industry 2026 report, released in February, found that 26% of restaurant operators are using AI tools, with marketing as the leading use case, 19% of full-service operators and 15% of limited-service operators use AI for marketing.
Customer ordering, however, tells a different story. Only 6% of restaurants are using AI for customer orders, the lowest adoption area in the report. The gap is not coming from consumer reluctance.
Roughly six in ten millennials and Gen Z adults said they would place an order with an AI-generated bot, according to the same NRA report, and six in ten operators plan to invest more in technology to enhance the customer experience. Consumer willingness to interact with AI ordering systems has outpaced the industry's deployment of them.
Where investment is accelerating, it is concentrated in specific areas. Qu's benchmark report found that QSRs are increasing technology spending at a higher rate than fast-casual brands, 54% versus 44%, with voice ordering and drive-thru computer vision as the primary focus areas.
"What's encouraging in this year's data is the clear shift from experimentation to execution," said Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu, the restaurant technology platform that conducted the benchmark study. "Operators recognize that the next phase of growth will come from modernizing how restaurants run across every channel and connecting the guest experience with smarter, more integrated systems."