With more than one million restaurants in the United States, it’s hard to imagine any American having trouble finding a place to eat. Consisting of anything from fine dining and fast casual to bistros, cafes, cafeterias, food trucks and other eateries, the restaurant and food service industry is forecast to reach $1.5 trillion in sales in 2025.
In such an ultra-competitive restaurant industry, every missed phone call or botched drive-thru order is a lost sale. Operators of multi-unit restaurants, from quick-service sandwich shops to bustling pizza chains, are searching for tech-driven solutions to deliver a consistent and efficient guest experience at scale.
Enter voice AI ordering technology. Once a futuristic concept, voice artificial intelligence (AI) is now very real and already revolutionizing customer service in other industries, including retail, banking and even healthcare. For restaurant brands, this technology tool is proving to be a game-changer that tackles staffing gaps, improves upselling and ensures 24/7 availability.
Even hospitality giants are taking notice: Yum! Brands (parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and more) “aims for a world where humans never take food orders,” and in 2025 began rolling out AI voice bots to 500 Taco Bell and Pizza Hut locations for drive-thru and phone orders. The message is clear: voice AI ordering has arrived, and it’s transforming how restaurants do business.
Shifting consumer preferences and staffing shortages are just a couple of the drivers spurring operators of eating establishments to explore voice AI for restaurants as a timely, cost-effective solution. Five of the other primary converging challenges include:
Even the most talented and dedicated staff at busy dining establishments often can’t answer every phone call. Hundreds of calls to restaurants go unanswered every month, whether because of peak-hour chaos or too few staff on hand.
About 60% of customers who wait on hold for too long will just hang up. A missed call can mean an unhappy customer, and that can result in lost revenue.
An AI phone agent ensures every call is answered promptly, capturing orders or inquiries that would otherwise slip through the cracks. This kind of always-on AI answering service can immediately boost sales by recovering opportunities that human staff might miss.
Restaurants everywhere face staff shortages and high turnover. The average annual restaurant industry turnover rate is 79.6%, and 27% of restaurant operators report having more than 20% below the necessary levels of staff.
With limited employees juggling dine-in guests, drive-thru lines and ringing phones, customer service can suffer. 80% of Americans surveyed say that with the right technology, restaurants can become more efficient and deal with the labor shortage better.
A voice AI assistant can take over routine order-taking and answer frequently asked questions, effectively acting as a round-the-clock AI virtual receptionist. This offloads work from human employees, allowing them to focus on food preparation and in-person customer service. In turn, employees aren’t stretched as thinly, improving morale and reducing that all-too-common burnout.
According to Accenture, upselling can lead to a revenue increase of up to 30%. And, studies have found that cross-selling can increase sales by 20% and profits by 30%.
Although the objective of upselling is to elevate the average order value of each customer, it can achieve additional positive consequences, including improved inventory management, less food waste, more strategic staffing based on anticipated sales and a better overall customer experience. Humans don’t upsell on every call, though — they might forget, feel shy or be too swamped to suggest add-ons.
An AI ordering system for restaurants will consistently upsell and cross-sell items according to the programmed strategy every single time. The impact on the bottom line can be substantial. For example, one AI ordering platform already serving 250+ restaurant locations (including brands like Papa John’s and Donatos Pizza) reports that its automated agents’ upsell suggestions produce ticket sizes 20–40% higher on average.
A bonus? Voice AI platforms don’t make arithmetic mistakes or forget to apply a promo, and they can be integrated directly with the POS and other existing
systems, ensuring orders are accurate and complete. Such consistency in the ordering process leads to fewer errors and more satisfied customers.
Most restaurants receive more than 150 calls daily. Certain segments — like pizza delivery or high-volume casual dining — still receive a huge volume of phone orders.
During peak period rushes, it’s not uncommon for lines to form at the register while the phone keeps ringing…and ringing…and ringing. Most diners waiting for takeout report that they will wait a maximum of 22 minutes for their order; roughly 21% say they won’t even wait a full 15 minutes.
By deploying a restaurant phone ordering automation solution (a voice bot that answers and takes orders), restaurants can handle multiple orders simultaneously. Advanced AI voices can sound very human-like, so callers feel like they’re talking to a real employee. And, if the AI gets a request it can’t handle or a caller really needs to speak with a human, the system can seamlessly transfer the call to a manager or live agent.
Voice AI for restaurants also lets customers quickly and securely pay for their orders without waiting in line at the cash register. This helps reduce waiting times and permits restaurants to serve more customers in less time.
A strong and consistent restaurant training program generates more than satisfied customers. It boosts staff morale, builds employee confidence, enhances a restaurant’s reputation and drives higher profits. More than half of restaurant employees who receive regular training say it has made them more loyal to their company.
For growing brands and franchised chains, maintaining a consistent guest experience is paramount. However, it takes 19 days on average to get new restaurant employees trained, and training staff at 50 or 500 locations to greet customers the same way and follow the same phone script is a daunting task.
Voice AI gives multi-unit operators a way to deliver the same friendly, on-brand interaction at every location. Whether a customer is calling a busy urban store or a quieter suburban one, the AI agent provides a uniform level of service, helping to reinforce the brand’s standards and messaging. It reduces the risk for inaccurate orders and other errors and decreases costs by boosting productivity — without the need to hire and train more employees.
In addition, with voice AI, updates such as a new promotional upsell or holiday hours can be rolled out to the AI system once and instantly take effect across all locations. This provides multi-location consistency and scalability with minimal effort, making it easier to cater to a wider audience.
Far from being a science experiment or simply a futuristic concept, AI is already being used in various restaurant ordering scenarios. Even major national restaurant and food service brands have embraced AI technology for its myriad benefits.
Taking orders via a crackly speaker in a noisy environment is a challenge even for veteran employees and others with extensive training. It typically results in a frustrating experience for consumers, leaving them less likely to frequent that restaurant location.
To combat these issues, Yum! Brands (in partnership with Nvidia) began installing voice-automated order-taking AI agents at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut drive-thrus in 2025. The AI agent greets the drive-thru customer, takes their order, asks clarifying questions and confirms the details — all in a human-like voice. The order is then sent directly to the kitchen display system, freeing staff to focus on other tasks and speeding throughput.
Corporate leaders in the restaurant industry see this type of technology as a pragmatic and cost-effective path to boosting sales. Maybe that’s because the share of revenue coming through digital channels far exceeds the 32% the average restaurant generated onsite and the 26% generated over the phone.
This is even truer for younger consumers. Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) are bigger spenders in cyberspace, and bridge millennials (those born between 1980 and 1989) spend dramatically more via digital channels.
Also, by guiding each order and suggesting extras, the AI drive-thru agent can more easily upsell and lift the average check size. As Yum’s Chief Digital Officer notes, digital initiatives like voice ordering allow the company’s restaurants to personalize offers and consistently upsell, which is “critical as the fast-food industry faces a pullback.” This potential of drive-thru voice AI to increase capacity and revenue while cutting wait times is a win-win for both guests and operators.
Pizza chains have been pioneers in employing voice AI to automate phone ordering. One such example is Donatos Pizza, which boasts 174 locations across the U.S. This Ohio-based pizza fan favorite deployed a voice AI ordering system (via Revmo AI) to handle its phone orders and numerous customer calls.
Instead of a lengthy hold time or a rushed and frazzled employee, callers to Donatos Pizza get a polite AI phone agent that can take a pizza order, suggest adding a side salad or dessert and confirm pickup or delivery details. Because modern voice AI is designed with multilingual support to understand accents and grasp caller sentiment, the technology can adapt its tone accordingly to provide a smooth customer experience — even for complex orders.
The ability to clone or create customized vocal identities, known as ‘own voice’, further enhances the customer interaction? How? By replicating personal voice characteristics.
Donatos’ adoption of this voice AI to automate phone ordering reflects a broader trend in the pizza segment: implementing AI technology to ensure no orders are missed. Papa John’s franchisees, for example, rolled out an AI ordering assistant that not only answers every call but also intelligently learns the menu to recommend add-ons. The upselling ability of the technology tool has yielded tickets that are 20-40% higher on average.
By fielding the bulk of incoming orders and transferring to a human agent if necessary, AI phone systems enable customers to promptly call and place their orders — even during peak operating hours — thereby improving satisfaction and building loyalty. Restaurants benefit through higher order volume and staff that’s free to focus on food prep and cater to walk-in guests instead of constantly answering the phone.
Voice AI provides restaurants of all types and sizes with 24/7 availability, meaning late-night or early-morning callers can be served whether or not the location is open and fully staffed. An AI answering service can take an order or message for when the kitchen opens, capturing business that might have otherwise gone to a culinary competitor.
Voice AI isn’t just for orders — it also can serve as a virtual host or receptionist for other guest interactions. Many casual dining and fast-casual restaurants are beginning to use AI assistants to handle reservations and waitlists and answer FAQs over the phone, utilizing different voices to create engaging and personalized experiences.
An AI agent can instantly respond to customer calls, gather party size and preferred reservation time, check availability and confirm the booking — all through a human-like conversation. Common questions about operating hours, directions, menu items and promotions can be answered by the AI immediately, saving staff several minutes per call and reducing customer wait times.
Some voice AI solutions extend this type of service to text-based support. Customers can text a number to make a reservation or ask a question and get an instant AI-powered response.
By offering the capability to handle both voice and text interactions, guests are served on their channel of choice without adding workload to the team. That’s responsiveness and convenience that can set a restaurant apart — especially for digitally-savvy consumers — in an already competitive industry.
The transformative impact of voice AI ordering goes beyond order taking. By implementing a voice AI ordering system for restaurants, brands unlock a host of benefits that improve operations and boost guest satisfaction. These perks include:
Unlike humans, AI agents don’t clock out or have bad days. They can handle inquiries and orders at any hour, which is especially useful for late-night food concepts or busy mornings before staff are on duty.
Customers appreciate getting a quick answer or placing an order without waiting on hold. Faster response times, shorter lines and the delivery of a perfect voice translate directly to a better customer experience.
Every customer interaction with voice AI for restaurants is consistent. The AI voice greets callers with the same branded message and polite tone, whether it’s Monday morning or the Saturday dinner rush, and can even utilize custom voices to align with your brand’s identity.
You can program the AI solution to use specific phrases or upsell certain items and trust that it will do so uniformly. This consistency builds trust because guests learn that calling your locations will yield a predictable, helpful response every time.
As noted, voice AI never forgets to upsell. It can be programmed with prompts for high-margin add-ons or to mention current promotions. Because the suggestions are systematic, restaurants see a lift in average order value.
One Forbes Tech Council report highlighted that voice AI systems are ushering in a new era of not only 24/7 efficiency and security and scalability but also personalized service. These systems achieve this by utilizing data to recommend items that match customer preferences, customized upselling that’s traditionally hard to consistently execute in person. Additionally, the integration of an AI voice generator can further enhance these upselling strategies by providing ultra-realistic voice quality and natural-sounding interactions.
Today’s voice AI achieves high speech recognition accuracy and confirms what it heard, reducing inaccurate orders due to communication errors. It can also automatically log every call or order transcript, which restaurant managers use to review and glean insights or quickly resolve disputes.
This accurate message-taking and documentation is more effective than relying on a busy employee’s memory or scribbled and often illegible notes. Combined, these records generate actionable analytics that can inform staffing, menu adjustments, marketing and more.
Implementing a voice AI assistant is often more cost-effective than hiring additional staff whose main responsibility is to answer phones. It’s like having a dependable employee who can simultaneously multitask across unlimited phone lines or drive-thru lanes.
Restaurants can scale service for a sudden surge (i.e., Super Bowl pizza orders) without scrambling to find extra employees to answer phone calls. The flexibility of voice AI to handle more call volume results in better preparedness for peak times and promotions and leads to fewer lost orders.
Successfully adopting voice AI requires some planning — training the tool on your menu, integrating it with your POS/ordering system and setting up proper fallback to humans for complex queries. But, the technology has matured to the point that even smaller franchises and regional chains are deploying AI ordering systems with great results.
As the Forbes Tech Council report noted, voice AI tech is rapidly reshaping customer service in a way any size restaurant can tap into. It’s not a gimmick — it’s a practical solution that addresses real operational pain points while also elevating the guest experience.
Voice AI ordering is quickly moving from an early adopter novelty to an industry best practice. Forward-thinking restaurant operators and marketers have a chance to get ahead of this trend and gain a competitive edge.
The technology’s benefits, from never missing a call to boosting upsell revenue, align directly with the challenges multi-unit restaurants have been struggling with for years. It’s an innovation that pays for itself in increased sales and improved efficiency
Imagine a voice AI ordering system tailored to your menu and brand, answering your restaurant’s calls or drive-thru orders with professionalism and precision. Picture the relief on the faces of your staff when an AI assistant handles the fifth phone line ringing off the hook or when it cheerfully greets a drive-thru customer at 11 p.m. Those scenarios are no longer science fiction; they are available today.
The future of restaurant ordering is here — and it talks. Embrace the voice AI revolution, and give your multi-unit restaurant the technology it needs to thrive in the modern era. Your customers (and your bottom line) will thank you for it.
If you’re curious about how voice AI could work for your restaurant group, the best way is to experience it firsthand. Revmo AI, a leading voice AI platform for restaurants, offers the opportunity to explore this technology through a personalized, hands-on demo.
Don’t let your restaurant fall behind in the digital transformation wave. Contact us online or by calling us at (888) 5-REVMO-1 to get your own AI ordering assistant up and running and stay ahead of the curve in 2025 and beyond.
Voice AI is already being utilized in various restaurant ordering scenarios, including drive-thru and phone orders, reservations and guest inquiries. Even major national restaurant and food service brands have embraced AI technology for its numerous benefits.
At Revmo AI, our solutions are designed to empower your staff, amplify your brand voice, and consistently deliver the operational excellence today’s savvy diners expect. If these 10 AI advantages resonate with your goals, it’s time to consider making an AI-powered transformation at your host stand.
Rev up your business with these 10 expert tips to keep your shop running smoothly and boost profitability.
Peak hours often result in over-preparation and, consequently, unnecessary food waste.
Let’s face it: restaurant reviews are everything.