Wendy’s Is Making Big Changes to Its Drive-Thrus This Year — and Customers Are Divided

This year, Wendy’s is making some big changes to its drive-thrus and, naturally, fans of the fast food chain have some thoughts.

Wendy’s will employ AI to take drive-thru orders at a large chunk of its nearly 6,000 U.S. restaurant locations by the end of 2025, CEO Kirk Tanner revealed during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Feb. 13.

The chain currently uses its AI voice assistant, which it began testing in 2023, in around 100 Wendy’s locations, and plans to expand its use to 500 to 600 by the end of the year, Tanner said.

The ordering assistant, a collaboration with Google Cloud, has been dubbed FreshAI, and Tanner says he personally tests it out himself a few times each week at a Wendy’s location near the chain’s headquarters in Dublin, Ohio.

According to Tanner, FreshAI “gives customers the opportunity to build their orders” and “understands what to ask for.”

The CEO also noted that the accuracy of the AI assistant — an area of concern that has caused problems for other restaurants employing AI in their ordering processes — “definitely is improving.”

And, if introduction of the voice assistant goes well this year, the chain may expand the use of voice AI to Wendy’s’ entire network, Tanner said during the Feb. 13 earnings call.

“It’s got a bright future,” he said, “and we’re moving forward.”

After learning of the chain’s plans to implement FreshAI, Wendy’s customers had mixed feelings, some excited while others expressed doubt and shared frustrating experiences with similar AI assistants.

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Reacting to the news on the ”r/Wendys” subreddit, one fan of the chain wrote, “Welp time to not eat at Wendys anymore,” as another agreed: “Yup. The day I pull up and there is no human interaction is the day I order 10 meal ‘deals,’ drive off and never return.”

“The AI ordertakers are garbage,” another Reddit user wrote, adding that they “get the order wrong so often I’ve had to have [an] employee start taking my order instead.”

Wendy’s customers on Reddit also expressed a desire for the chain to focus their energy on lowering prices and increasing quality, rather than implementing AI tools — but still others are excited at the prospect of the voice assistant expanding to more locations.

“Sad to say this but AI drive-thru is way better than with real people,” one person wrote, while another echoed this, adding that AI assistants “don’t shovel three promotions that you have to decline down your throat either while you’re just tryna get a biggie bag. I hate to say it but my experience with these so far has been faster and always correct.”

“Once the tech is better, this should be a good thing,” a different user added. “It’s hard to hear people sometimes. I have a lot of trouble with any accent different than my own.”