AI voice assistant fills drive through window job

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INTERNATIONAL - The drive-through window is often considered the most harrowing assignment inside a fast-food restaurant. A nonstop whirlwind of multitasking, the gig involves organising multiple orders, communicating with the kitchen, counting money and negotiating with an endless stream of customers who range from polite and coherent to angry and inebriated - all for a minimum wage reward. If that juggling act wasn’t hard enough, a giant timer hangs in many drive through kitchens, adding urgency to each task, former workers say. Though the drive through gauntlet has broken many a fast food worker, the newest employee at Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard in Denver will not be feeling the heat any time soon. That’s because she’s an artificially intelligent voice assistant - emotion-free and immune to stress - with the ability to operate a drive through window without fatigue, bathroom breaks or compensation.

She fills a classic American job nearly a century in the making, a rite of passage for generations of teenagers that could be in the very early stages of a mass extinction. But first Rob Carpenter, the chief executive and founder of Valyant AI, an artificial intelligence company that designed the customer service platform, will have to prove that his model works as well as he says it does.

The AI assistant has endured months of testing, but officially began handling the restaurant’s breakfast orders last week.

“The system takes a lot of friction out of interactions between customers and employees,” Carpenter said, noting that the AI was designed to sound like an amiable woman’s voice. “The AI never gets offended and it will just keep talking to you in a very calm and friendly voice.”

There’s an immediate benefit for employees as well, Carpenter maintains.

“Over the course of an eight-hour shift, they don’t have to repeat the same welcome language hundreds of times,” he said.

- The Washington Post