Yum! Brands – parent company to popular fast food brands and restaurants Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and The Habit Grills – recently revealed that they eventually want all of their brand’s sales to be 100% digital, which would ultimately phase-out waiting staff and cashiers with digitization and artificial intelligence.
During an earnings call on August 2nd, CFO Chris Turner revealed this shift in sales, saying,
Our ability to get to 100% will depend on new innovations.
Time and time again, when we shift sales into the digital channels, we see sales acceleration. It really demonstrates how this is such a high return on investment for our franchisees and for us.
Turner said, noting that the move towards digitization leads to larger orders from reoccurring customers, opening up new ways to market to them
The Wall Street Journal wrote, ‘What might a digitally enabled dining experience look like? It may include more customers placing orders through a Yum website or mobile app, through a third-party aggregator, or at a kiosk in a restaurant. It could also involve using artificial intelligence to take drive-through orders, which the company is in the early stages of testing, Turner said in an interview with CFO Journal.’
‘Yum declined to provide a time frame for hitting its goal. But the company has been making progress, with, for example, Taco Bell growing its U.S. digital sales by 35% in the quarter ended June 30 as it set up kiosks in every restaurant, the company said,’ The WSJ added.
Wingstop has announced that they plan to do something similar as well. Last year The WinePress reported on what Wingstop was calling “the restaurant of the future;” shops that have “100% digital transactions, seamless back of house operations,” with a delivery and carryout-only format. In their words the locations will be a “totally cashless environment” and “complete with QR codes in-restaurant for easy ordering.”
Andy Barish, a managing director at investment bank Jefferies, commented Yum’s move and the overall industry shift:
Yum’s obviously building, acquiring and integrating all of that to create their Yum commerce platform in terms of supporting the back end of these forward-facing brands.
It’s something that you will continue to see move to different brands and different countries.
Barish said
The Trends Journal commented on the effects this will have on the labor market and corporate profits:
This is another instance of businesses using technology to sacrifice workers on the altar of efficiency and profit.
Hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of people find their first jobs behind fast-food counters. Eliminating these jobs erases a traditional way for young people to learn how to behave in a work setting and for low-skill individuals to still find a place in the workforce.
This transition does not even need artificial intelligence, which some burger joints already are experimenting with in their kitchens to make French fries and do other routine tasks.
The more jobs lost to technology, the greater public pressure will be on companies and governments to retrain displaced workers for tech skills or to create programs guaranteeing a basic income.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[25] The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour. [26] He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not. Proverbs 21:25-26
I’ve noted in many other reports that this rapid rollout of AI and replacement of workers is being most felt in the hospitality and service sector, and like the Trends Journal pointed out, this will displace a ridiculous number of workers, especially considering that 70% of the U.S. economy is service and hospitality work.
But since so many of the gluttonous Americans need their fast food drug hit and high, they will not care and will except this AI and cashless takeover.
SEE:
- McDonalds In China Launches Self-Serving Facial Recognition Kiosks For Contactless Payments And Orders
- Fully-Autonomous McDonald’s Opens In Texas
- Wendy’s To Replace Human Order-Takers At Drive-Thru With Google-Powered AI Chatbot
- Carl’s Jr. And Hardee’s To Rollout AI Drive-Thru Ordering Nationwide
- Panera Bread Debuts Amazon One’s “Frictionless” Palm-Reading Payment System
- White Castle To Deploy Voice AI To Over 100 Drive-Thrus. Other Restaurants Follow Suit
- Sweetgreen Restaurant Will Open Autonomous Kitchen In Illinois
- Jack In The Box Restaurants Are Piloting Automated Hamburger Cooking Robots
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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