A chef visited the trade show booth of Beyond Honeycomb, a technology and foodservice-equipment company based in South Korea, during the National Restaurant Association Show last May. He was clearly suspicious of the company’s promise of “consistently chef-quality product” when cooking with its Grill X grilling robot.

Beyond Honeycomb spokesman Andy Shim tried to explain that the machine, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), “has a molecular sensor that senses. ...” 

The chef interrupted impatiently: “Oh, so the AI measures the temperature of the meat.”

“No,” Shim countered, “it doesn’t detect the temperature level inside. It doesn’t have to!”

This time, the chef begrudgingly listened to Shim’s explanation of AI-measured Maillard reaction, doneness and collagen levels before walking back to his own booth befuddled and perhaps a little intimidated.

As AI slowly becomes reality in retailing, and indeed the rest of American life, the meshing of technology with food preparation remains a challenge for those schooled in the culinary arts. And while robotic inventions such as the $30,000 Grill X have made some inroads—having been deployed in about 150 locations around the world—most AI adoption in foodservice is coming at the back-office and operations levels. 

‘Running a Better Business’

“In retail—and especially convenience and foodservice—AI is less about futuristic experiences and more about running a better business, every day, at scale,” said Mike Weber, chief growth officer at software-as-a-service company Upshop, based in Austin, Texas.

That’s certainly been the experience for Benjamin Lucky, a seasoned c-store foodservice expert who has helped build foodservice offers for a number of retailers, including Cal’s Convenience, Dash In and, most recently, 7-Eleven, Inc.

“The opportunity seems to be in the back office: IT people, the people doing the pricebook, anything that can help them move things along faster, because it is tedious work,” he said. “With some of the programs that are out there now, they can spit out a degree of analysis that maybe people may not have thought of.”

It’s this idea of letting the technology show users where it can be useful that is guiding retail tech developer Diebold Nixdorf in its journey through store-level AI.

“We are seeing a lot of AI being either tested or implemented [in quick-service restaurants] around two areas: optimization of operations within the restaurant to drive autonomy of process or to catch loss within that environment,” said Matt Redwood, vice president of retail technology. “We find that there is a lot of food waste. … You can use computer vision to identify that maybe something has been left out of the fridge and it shouldn’t be, and [you can] alert somebody to put it back. You can alert against things that are being thrown away unnecessarily.”

The opportunities to explore a variety of uses of the technology appear to be endless, from preventing waste and theft to data analysis and employee scheduling.

Parker’s Kitchen is one of the few retailers that has reported finding predictive analytics an opportunity to improve kitchen prep. 

“We’ve been using artificial intelligence in our kitchens for a long time,” Founder and Executive Chairman Greg Parker said during a Vision Group Network convenience leaders virtual roundtable in 2023. “That gives us predictive analytics to know how many chicken tenders to drop or different things to do in our kitchens, which I think is highly effective.”

Interestingly, however, most high-profile uses of AI in foodservice are happening at the drive-thru.

Made to Order?

McDonald’s has tested AI solutions to battle growing wait times at drive-thru windows during the lunch rush. These solutions included using AI-driven edge computing, generative voice ordering, dynamic promotions and predictive maintenance, according to a report by learning platform DigitalDefynd. The results: Wait times fell an average of 27 seconds, ordering accuracy improved, ticket values grew and downtime decreased.

“McDonald’s journey illustrates that successful AI adoption is less about dazzling novelty and more about disciplined scale, measurable payback and relentless iteration,” the report concluded. “McDonald’s provides a blueprint for leaders evaluating their AI road maps: Start with concrete pain points, codesign with frontline teams, pilot quickly and scale only when the numbers prove out.” 

Meanwhile, Yum! Brands’ Taco Bell began testing Voice AI ordering at the drive-thru in 2023. Today, it is used at more than 500 of its 8,000 locations. In 2025, it was suggested the QSR might slow the rollout of the technology after consumer trolls toyed with the systems, sometimes ordering thousands of cups of water, for example, to force errors for the sake of social media content.

But Yum! Brands CEO Chris Turner said such events illustrate exactly the power of AI: learning from experiences and adjusting operations. He remains a proponent of the technology, which he said increased sales by 14% over the previous quarter in stores where it was implemented. 

It makes the job of manning the drive-thru “so much easier,” he said on a September episode of Mad Money on CNBC. “And that’s why in restaurants where we have Voice AI deployed, we see lower turnover, because it’s making those jobs easier to do.” At the same time, it’s creating a more seamless experience for customers and employees, he said.

Keeping It Human

Most proponents of AI agree the adoption of new technology should not be about cutting staff to save money. Rather, they say efficiency and simplification allow employees to serve more customers or address tasks that typically get ignored or completed with a lack of precision.

“AI shouldn’t be seen as the replacement for humans,” said Redwood. “It’s a way of enhancing the human [by] making the processes more efficient, using that time more effectively, doing more with less, and removing waste from either the process or situation.”

“It’s a tool. It’s a bit like using Google instead of an encyclopedia to look something up. It’s faster. It’s more efficient. It means that you’ve got more time to do what you need to do.”

Weber of Upshop echoes that sentiment.

“AI should not replace human judgment or operational expertise. It should augment it,” he said. “Over time, AI will become a foundational layer across most business functions—similar to how cloud computing or mobile technology did—quietly embedded rather than visibly separate.”

Upshop offers an AI-powered platform for retail that is focused on executing plans correctly, keeping shelves and foodservice programs in stock, and reducing waste and friction for store teams.

“The businesses that win will be the ones that use AI to improve everyday decisions, trust it where it consistently performs and keep humans focused on strategy, creativity and exceptions,” Weber said.

Lucky, however, fears that over time, executive teams will primarily grasp at AI innovation as a way to cut costs, meaning having fewer employees. When the concept “leaves the realm of the ideal,” he said, in reality it will become another tool used to simply improve profits. 

“[Retail executives] want to see margin. They want to see price. They don’t care about the use occasions or what the guest is thinking,” he said. “They’re just looking at it thinking, ‘I need to sell this. Therefore, I’m going to do everything I can to sell it,’ instead of, ‘I made this for you.’”

To that end, Shahan Ohanessian, founder and CEO of VenHub Global, has dedicated much of his career to removing humans from the retail environment. With his latest venture, he wants AI technology to do all the work, short of stocking the shelves. He is an engineer and tech developer who had a hand in creating the Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh cashierless retail concepts. 

“We have smart cars. We have smartphones. We have smart homes. But we don’t have any smart retail,” he said in describing his mission with VenHub. “I want a store that is super customer-friendly. I want it to be fast and smart, safe and secure, open 24 hours a day, easily installed, remotely managed with no employees, and have a very low cost of entry [with] high profit margins. And I want it to be in every vertical.”

VenHub’s initial concept is an 800-square-foot, fully enclosed vending machine that is operated by two robotic arms named Barb and Peter. Shopping is done via an app and items are picked up from a collection box in the unit.

“All of your interactions with the smart store are via a mobile app,” Ohanessian said. “[Customers] can see the inventory. They can order whatever they wish. If they need support, they click on the support button and get instantaneous support, and that can be AI or human support, depending on what they request.”

At this point, foodservice is limited to packaged foods and snacks. However, the AI will “learn the neighborhood,” he said. “It understands what the neighborhood is looking for. If there’s product A vs. product B, after a while, [the store] will tell you, ‘Stop ordering product A; your customers just want product B.’”

Finding Middle Ground

Meanwhile, Darren Rebelez, chairman, president and CEO of Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey’s General Stores, says the company has found a balance between reducing store hours worked and sustaining employee satisfaction.

Casey’s began testing SYNQ3 AI solutions in 2022, with the goal of boosting its off-premises food business. The “autonomous, conversational AI ordering technology” SYNQ Voice greets guests, provides upsell suggestions and takes orders, with connections to both Casey’s point-of-sale system and its loyalty program, all without requiring any intervention from Casey’s employees. 

When discussing such advancements, Casey’s typically acknowledges it under the more mundane title of providing “efficiencies in labor hours.” Rebelez said such efficiencies usually come from listening to store employees through its Frontline Advisory Board and its Continuous Improvement Team. 

The team’s “sole purpose is to go into stores and try to make the job of a team member easier to execute,” he said during an episode of the “Future of Convenience” podcast in March 2025. “In some cases, that’s moving work upstream; in other cases, that’s just eliminating it altogether or finding a different way of doing it where it’s easier. And as a result of that, we’ve been able to reduce our same-store labor hours for eight consecutive quarters.” 

Concurrently, he said, both Casey’s employee-engagement and guest-satisfaction scores have improved.

“At the same time we’re removing some labor, we’re leaving some extra labor in the store in the form of slack,” he said. “So that team member actually feels like they’re not working as hard. ... It’s made us a more efficient organization but at the same time more effective.”

Beyond Science Fiction

While the high-profile AI tools that exist today are getting positive results, executives in the tech development space say the future of AI in retailing is bright as younger advocates enter the workforce.

“The reality is, [AI is] such a common part of life now and of every aspect of the industry that every [college] degree will probably have an AI module bolted on,” said Redwood of Diebold Nixdorf. “Because it doesn’t matter where you work, who you work for, what industry, what role—there will be AI playing a part in that. Whether it’s generative [AI] or computer vision, or machine learning, it will be somewhere.”

And industry veterans collaborating with these younger employees raised on AI is what it’ll take to make true innovation and adaptability happen, said Bill Wade, a longtime product manager for PDI Technologies. 

“It’s going to be a combination of both. It’s going to be the people who haven’t been in the industry so long that they’ve become calcified in terms of how they approach solving problems,” said Wade, who was inducted into the Conexxus Technology Hall of Fame in January. “Combine that with [younger] people who have been using AI long enough that they’ve got a knowledge base operating at that intuitive level” and who automatically use it in everything they touch, he said.

In other words, if you want to stop hearing about AI, you’re probably out of luck. Because it’s quickly becoming part of every business decision being made.  

Yum! Brands: Beyond the Drive-Thru

Taco Bell has been one of the most vocal proponents of artificial intelligence (AI) voice technology, using it at the drive-thrus of more than 500 of its 8,000 U.S. restaurant locations. But its parent company, Yum! Brands, is putting AI to work in multiple other ways to improve operations and store upkeep. ByteByYum! is an AI-powered, comprehensive software-as-a-service platform intended to “connect orders, teams and systems—so you can run smarter, serve faster and scale effortlessly,” the company said.

The elements of ByteByYum! include: 

• Byte Connect: A product that streamlines order and menu integration with third-party delivery partners. It’s currently in use at U.S. KFC locations, and it will be added to U.S. Taco Bell sites this year.
• Byte Coach: Delivers AI recommendations to store managers. It’s been deployed to more than 28,000 restaurants across the Yum! system.
• Byte Commerce: A scalable and global web and mobile app ordering platform. It enables viral promotions or daily drops to drive high transaction velocity, such as Pizza Hut’s $2 Personal Pan Pizza.

And more are on the way, said Ranjith Roy, chief financial officer.

“We are excited about using AI at the enterprise level to build Byte in a more efficient manner,” Roy said. “Currently, one-third of our developers are regularly using AI developer tools and realizing significant productivity gains. By early 2026, substantially all of our Byte software developers will be using AI tools to write better, safer and more efficient code for the Byte platform.”