They say automation will save QSR. But here’s the truth: tech doesn’t build loyalty — operations do.
The moment you hand over ordering to AI, you’re handing over risk.
Brands love to pump Wall Street with promises of faster throughput and lower labor costs. But it’s the franchisees who absorb the reality: downtime, retraining, frustrated customers, and unit economics that don’t always balance out.
If you’re a brand leader, the real question isn’t “can we automate the drive-thru?” It’s “should operators be forced to carry the downside for a tech play that might fail?”
What the Leaders Promised
The past few years have been full of bold statements:
McDonald’s CIO Brian Rice declared the chain was “committed to streamlining customer orders globally through AI.”
Yum! Brands CFO Chris Turner told investors Taco Bell was “seeing encouraging results” using AI in drive-thrus.
Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor said its new “FreshAI” system was cutting wait times and improving accuracy.
White Castle VP Jamie Richardson praised its kitchen robot, Flippy 2, for freeing crews from repetitive fryer work.
Chipotle CTO Curt Garner positioned automation as the future, with machines taking over the repetitive while staff “focus on food.”
These promises are slick. They speak the language of innovation, consistency, and cost control. But the gap between the boardroom narrative and the operator reality is widening fast.
The Work Behind the Hype
For operators, there’s no such thing as “plug and play” AI. The investment is heavy and ongoing.
There’s the capex: hardware, edge servers, cameras, microphones, and integrations with POS and kitchen systems. Then come licensing fees and software updates, along with region-specific retraining of voice models just to understand accents or menu variations.
Crews must be trained on fallback protocols and manual overrides for when the system misfires. And it will misfire. That means operators also absorb the cost of downtime support and customer dissatisfaction — which tends to peak exactly when stores are busiest.
Then there’s the reputational risk. When AI makes mistakes, it doesn’t happen quietly. It goes viral. Taco Bell’s drive-thru AI was trolled into taking prank orders for thousands of waters. The operator doesn’t just lose time — they lose credibility with guests.
Who’s Got More Power (and Less to Lose)?
This imbalance is the heart of the story.
Franchisors control the spin. They get the PR splash, the investor buzz, the promise of “tech-driven growth.” If a system fails, they chalk it up to testing and pivot.
Operators? They pay the bill. They manage the retraining, the breakdowns, and the upset customers. Every failure runs straight into the P&L. The power isn’t shared equally.
The franchisor risks brand perception; the operator risks profitability.
Present-Day Reality (2025)
Two years into the hype cycle, cracks are showing.
McDonald’s has ended its IBM voice AI pilot in more than 100 locations. A spokesperson admitted that while the technology showed potential, it simply wasn’t meeting standards for accuracy or consistency. In plain English: the experiment created more problems than it solved.
Taco Bell’s CTO Dane Mathews has conceded “the system lets me down sometimes.” On the operator side, John Rankin, who runs hundreds of Taco Bell units under Charter Foods, was even sharper: “There’s a lot of fluff… what’s it really gonna do for me?”
These aren’t critics lobbing grenades from the outside. These are the voices inside the brands — executives and operators — admitting the risk is real.
Final Call (No BS)
Automation may still have a future in QSR.
But the lesson is simple: until franchisors share the risk — through co-investment, bulletproof reliability, and real unit-level ROI — operators are betting their margins on someone else’s experiment.
Over time, technology often proves too risky for the very people who make the restaurants run. And as 2025 has already shown, when the hype doesn’t match the results, it’s the operators — not the brands — left cleaning up the mess.
Want the No BS Advantage?
If this analysis hits home, you’ll want our free Playbook — built for operators and investors who need real-world questions to cut through the hype before signing the check.
Subscribers also get first access to our weekly breakdowns: no spin, no PR gloss, just what actually moves the unit economics. And when you’re ready for deeper dives, our Intel Reports give you operator-level clarity on fees, AUVs, red flags, and growth signals — the kind of analysis that vendors, brands, and private equity don’t publish.
Subscribe now and get the Playbook + early access to Intel Reports that keep you ahead of the curve.