What happened
Burger King introduces "Patty," a voice chatbot integrated into employee headsets, piloting in 500 restaurants. Patty assesses worker friendliness by recognising polite phrases like "please" and "thank you," based on data from franchises and customers, per Thibault Roux, chief digital officer. This system also assists with meal preparation, answers menu/cleaning questions, and integrates with the cloud point-of-sale to update stock within 15 minutes. Burger King plans to roll out its BK Assistant platform to all U.S. restaurants by year-end, while testing AI drive-thrus in fewer than 100 locations.
Why it matters
Employee performance metrics now extend to AI-driven sentiment analysis, shifting human resources and operations management. Procurement teams face new considerations for AI-as-a-service contracts, requiring clear service level agreements for accuracy and bias in sentiment detection. Platform engineers integrating such AI into existing POS and headset systems demand strong API security and data privacy protocols for employee interaction data. This follows previous challenges with AI drive-thru systems at Taco Bell and McDonald's, where technical glitches impacted customer experience and operational efficiency.
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