Say hello (and thank you) to Patty, Burger King's new AI chatbot, which will live inside its employees' headsets to monitor their etiquette and branch performance
Of all the places I thought AI would knock on the door of, like a grim reaper, I never expected it to be Burger King. Tech, videogames, movies, sure—they're all about cutting-edge technology, even if it's misguided and self-destructive—but a fast food chain?
As reported by The Verge, Burger King is launching its own AI chatbot (how many are there now?) powered by Open-AI, creatively named Patty, that will reside in the headsets of its employees. It's aiming to roll this out to all its restaurants in the US by the end of 2026.
Why does a fast food company need an AI bot? That's a good question.
Patty is designed to help its employees prepare meals, such as giving reminders of how many strips of bacon should be on a burger or how to clean certain equipment. But it can also evaluate the "friendliness" of employees' interactions with customers.
Burger King's chief digital officer, Thibault Roux, explains that the AI has been trained to recognise words and phrases like "welcome to Burger King," "please," and “thank you,” so that managers can use the assistant to monitor their location's performance. "This is all meant to be a coaching tool," Roux adds.
And Patty is just the "voice" of the company's AI assistant platform, Roux explains, as the system also tracks and collates data such as inventory, equipment, and drive-thru conversations. The idea being that key systems become automated. Roux gives the example of an item running out of stock, which will alert managers and "Within 15 minutes, the entire ecosystem will remove it from stock—whether you’re walking into a restaurant to order from the kiosk [or] going to the drive-thru, the digital menu board will be updated."
Speaking of drive-thrus, Burger King is "playing around with it, but it’s still a risky bet," as Roux explains that "Not every guest is ready for this". That's not the only thing I'd be weighing up if I were them, as we've already seen the complications of AI drive-thrus after one man ordered 18,000 water bottles at Taco Bell.
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