Get Ready Texas, Big Changes Coming to Your Favorite Drive-Thru

Texans love to take their own truck. Maybe when you drive your own vehicle you're buying into that "Texas Independent Spirit", or maybe you just don't like other folks controlling your timetable. So, when we get in our cars to join the countless thousands on the freeway in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, or any other Texas town where traffic snarls, it's no wonder we don't want to leave.

We Texans certainly don't want to have to get out of our vehicles for a cup of coffee or to eat breakfast or lunch or for any reason other than going into our house. Yep, until we're ready to go inside and kick off our boots or unsnap the bra, we'd just as soon stay in the driver's seat.

Restaurants figured that out a couple of decades ago. In today's modern food service landscape, if you don't have a drive-thru then you're missing out on a lot of business. Many fast-food restaurants have event adopted a drive-thru-only posture for evening and overnight customers.

And while we love the drive-thru and the convenience it offers, we also hate the drive-thru because of the mistakes that get made. Believe it or not, that's an issue that many of your favorite fast-food franchises have been working to solve. and apparently, the folks at Wendy's are devising a plan to get you in and out of their drive-thru with a correct order by using technology.

During an earnings call last week the CEO of Wendy's Kirk Tanner told those listening that the company would be deploying "voice-enabled AI order taking" at up to 600 of its restaurants across the country. That means when you pull up to the drive-thru the voice you hear won't be that of a real human working there.

Wendy's actually launched the program back in 2023 and through testing in some 100 different drive-thrus has decided to move forward with the technology. The program is called FreshAI and the hope is the high-tech approach to drive-thru deficiencies will minimize human error and speed up the process.