It’s part of parent Yum! Brands’ plans to integrate voice artificial intelligence (AI) to its stores around the world, the company announced Wednesday (July 31).

“The rollout of Voice AI technology in Taco Bell, currently in more than 100 Taco Bell U.S. drive-thrus across 13 states, is designed to enhance back-of-house operations for team members and elevate the order experience for consumers,” Yum said in a news release. “Benefits include easing task load for team members, improving order accuracy, providing a consistent, friendly experience, and reducing wait times, while driving profitable growth for Taco Bell, Yum! Brands and their franchisees.”

Based in Louisville, Kentucky, Yum’s other brands include Pizza Hut and KFC. In addition to the Taco Bell AI integration, five KFCs in Australia are simultaneously testing Voice AI technology in drive-thrus.

As PYMNTS wrote last month, AI speech technology is a growing sector, yet it hasn’t fully taken off in the restaurant sector so far. McDonald’s recently ended its partnership with IBM to develop an AI-powered drive-thru system, choosing to remove the technology from over 100 restaurants.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s said a voice ordering solution for drive-thrus will be “part of our restaurants’ future” and added: “We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

“The fast-food giant’s decision highlights both the challenges and opportunities in implementing AI voice-ordering systems amid industry wide labor shortages and the push for streamlined operations,” PYMNTS wrote.

Other fast-food chains, such as Checkers & Rally’s Restaurants Inc., CKE Restaurants Holdings Inc.’s Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., and Wendy’s Co., are either testing or have implemented similar technology in their drive-thrus. Yum, meanwhile, has increased its investment in digital, technology and innovation to $21 million in 2023, compared to $11 million the previous year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week that technology and technology and automation are increasingly crucial tools in addressing staffing shortages in the restaurant section.

“As of May, restaurant employment has grown by less than 1% despite high demand. This ongoing staffing crunch is pushing restaurants to rely more on technology and automation, including for payment processing,” that report said.

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By the Numbers

The 2024 PYMNTS Intelligence report, “How the World Does Digital,” surveyed more than 67,000 consumers from 11 countries representing around 50% of the global GDP, examining their digital behaviors in multiple facets of daily life.

The study reveals that 17.9% of the overall population utilizes voice technology for shopping at least once a week. However, a closer look at the generational breakdown reveals a stark contrast in adoption rates.

Generation Z leads the charge with 30.4% of its members engaging in voice shopping weekly. This tech-savvy group, known for its fluency with digital devices and preference for seamless experiences, is setting the pace for future consumer behavior.

Millennials, not far behind, show a 27.6% weekly usage rate of voice shopping. As digital natives who came of age during the rise of the internet and smartphones, millennials have integrated voice technology into their busy lives, leveraging its convenience to streamline tasks.

For Generation X, the adoption rate drops significantly to 14.9%. This generation, which straddles the divide between the pre-digital and digital eras, shows a more cautious approach to new technology. While many have embraced digital tools, their use of voice technology lags behind the younger generations.

The gap widens further with baby boomers, of whom only 6.8% use voice technology for shopping weekly. This generation, often characterized by its slower adoption of new technologies, appears less inclined to shift from traditional shopping methods to voice-activated commands.

A Deeper Dive

Indeed, voice commerce is gaining ground. In a conversation with PYMNTS published in March, Christian Mentz, CRO at Cerence, shared that with the contextual awareness and natural language processing (NLP) of the latest artificial intelligence models, voice functionality has transformed from a “task master” service, simply surfacing information, to a more intuitive, human-like experience.

Take, for instance, the restaurant industry. Jamie Richardson, vice president of marketing and public relations at White Castle, said in an interview with PYMNTS that he anticipates a surge in voice automation in restaurants this year.

“[In 2024], I think [we’ll see] rapid advance, I think increasing consumer acceptance, and advances in the quality of experience for both team members … as well as customers,” Richardson said. “If there’s an accelerator principle at play that any of us ever hypothesize, now it’s truer than ever.”

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Read more: AI’s First Year: How Voice Reshaped the Conversational Ecosystem

In fact, just 7.8% of consumers believe voice technology is as smart and reliable as a real person today, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “How Consumers Want to Live in the Voice Economy.”

This limitation is evident in the current state of the technology, which is predominantly device-driven and primarily used for simple tasks. For instance, while 52% of consumers have used voice commands to find and purchase airline tickets and accommodations on their mobile devices, only 44% completed the purchase entirely through voice prompts. 

However, that percentage could soon increase, with advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) paving the way for voice assistants that can complete more complex tasks.

Companies like Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Meta are spearheading this shift, pioneering the development of new AI models that promise to enhance voice assistants’ reasoning and planning capabilities.

As the Financial Times (FT) recently reported, OpenAI’s upcoming model, likely to be named GPT-5, is expected to address complex problems such as problem-solving, while Meta is rolling out Llama 3, an AI model embedded with reasoning, planning and memory capabilities.

“We’re going to start to see AI that can take on more complex tasks in a more sophisticated way,” OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told the FT. “I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface on the ability that these models have to reason.”

The integration of reasoning and planning into voice assistants is crucial for achieving what AI researchers term “artificial general intelligence” — superhuman cognition. This advancement allows voice assistants to comprehend and execute sequences of related tasks, predict outcomes and provide contextually relevant responses to user queries.

Enhanced reasoning and planning capabilities also pave the way for voice assistants to proactively assist users in accomplishing their objectives. For example, Meta is developing AI “agents” capable of planning and booking entire journeys spanning multiple destinations, highlighting the potential for voice technology to streamline complex tasks. 

The optimism surrounding the future of voice technology is evident among consumers, as the PYMNTS Intelligence study revealed that more than 60% of Americans believe that voice assistants will eventually match human intelligence and reliability in the near future. 

Millennials are the most optimistic, with 57% expecting this advancement within the next five years, surpassing the 46% average among all consumer demographics.

This optimism is further reflected in a willingness to invest financially in the promise of advanced voice assistants, with nearly 30% of American consumers open to paying a monthly fee for services that deliver the envisioned level of intelligence and reliability. Among millennials, this figure rises to 43%, reflecting a strong demand for next-generation voice technology among this age group. 

However, despite these promising prospects, challenges persist, including concerns about fraud, data privacy, security, algorithmic bias, accessibility and trust issues. Addressing these issues will be crucial to ensuring that the benefits of advanced voice assistants are responsibly managed and widely accessible to all users.

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By the Numbers

PYMNTS Intelligence’s study last April, “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Catching the Coming eCommerce Wave” drew from a survey of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers to understand how they are making their digital purchases, among other matters.

The results revealed that while three-quarters of consumers shop and pay for retail purchases in stores, 15% online using a mobile device, and 12% online using a laptop, only 2% of consumers do so via other channels, such as phone or voice-activated device.

Drilling Down

There could be several reasons for this relatively low penetration.

Voice-activated devices may have limited functionality or compatibility with certain eCommerce platforms, making it less convenient for consumers to use them for purchases.

Additionally, some consumers may simply not be aware of the option to make purchases using voice-activated devices or may not be familiar with how to use them for this purpose.

Plus, voice-activated purchasing experiences may not be as seamless or user-friendly as other methods yet, leading consumers to prefer more developed channels for making purchases.

What Insiders Are Saying

Consumers have been burned before.

“[When voice AI first started,] consumers wanted to have those sci-fi-style, open-ended conversations [with robots], and many were disappointed because the tools at that time could only play music, set timers, tell you the weather,” Keyvan Mohajer, CEO and co-founder of conversational intelligence platform SoundHound, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview last year.

He added that these limited “utility occasions” had the unfortunate side effect of causing consumers to lower their expectations around voice AI applications. Yet, he contended, the technology is finally able to provide consumers with the first promising glimpses of a truly open-ended conversational experience.

One of the key sites of voice commerce innovation is within consumers’ vehicles, through their cars’ digital interfaces, as Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards noted in an interview last year with Webster.

“Apple CarPlay and Google [Android Auto] have taken most functions away from the driver and turned them into voice commands,” he said. “There has got to be some element of intelligence built into that because there’s a dialogue that goes on” as consumers are alerted to, consider and ultimately transact across a range of interactions and experiences.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

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And recent developments by firms are pushing the boundaries of what voice technology can achieve. 

Whispp’s assistive voice technology, for instance, is opening up new avenues of communication for individuals with voice disabilities such as severe stuttering or vocal cord paralysis. The advanced voice recognition and synthesis algorithms enables users to express themselves more fluently and confidently, overcoming the limitations imposed by their condition. 

Whispp’s standout feature lies in its capability to analyze old recordings of one’s original voice to maintain a user’s distinct speaking style and accent. Additionally, users have the option to record their current voice, which the app stores as a precautionary measure against potential voice or speech difficulties in the future.

“Our big bold dream is to have Whispp’s assistive voice technology available on every smartphone and laptop worldwide to create a more inclusive world,” said Whispp Founder and CEO Joris Castermans, said in a January report by EU Startups.

Similarly, the recent partnership between Code Factory and Creoir has unveiled another promising application of voice technology in the self-service space. By integrating voice interaction capabilities into existing kiosks, drive-thrus, and POS systems, this collaboration brings forth a new era of convenience and accessibility. 

Customers can now navigate these interfaces effortlessly, whether they prefer to speak their orders or interact through traditional means. This not only streamlines operations for businesses but also enhances the overall customer experience, catering to a diverse range of preferences and needs.

Meanwhile, voice technology firm ElevenLabs has secured $80 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $1 billion earlier this year. The investment will support the launch of several new products, including a voice library marketplace where users can monetize their own voices by creating artificial intelligence (AI) versions.

“Users can create their professional AI voice replica, verify it, and share it via Voice Library,” the company’s announcement said, PYMNTS reported Jan. 22. “When others use these verified voices, the original creators receive compensation. Users always retain control over their voice’s availability and compensation terms.”

Combating Misuse of Voice Tech

Amid the surging interest and investment in voice-related ventures, concerns regarding the potential misuse of this technology for fraudulent purposes are also on the rise.

For instance, scammers could exploit voice cloning to impersonate family members, friends or business executives, tricking unsuspecting individuals and inflicting financial damage.

As Karen Postma, managing vice president of risk analytics and fraud services at PSCU, told PYMNTS last October, fraudsters utilizing generative AI “can effectively mimic a voice within three seconds of having recorded data,” indicating that they are “utilizing AI to not just commit attacks, but to become very good at committing these attacks.” 

In response to these apprehensions, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiated the Voice Cloning Challenge last year to seek ideas aimed at preventing the misuse of the technology. 

Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, emphasized the agency’s commitment to taking a proactive stance in addressing potential threats, noting at the time that they “want to address harms before they hit the marketplace and enforce the law when they do.”

Companies like ElevenLabs have also affirmed their dedication to the “safe and responsible development” of AI technology, including prioritizing the development of detection tools to ensure the easy identification of AI-generated content. 

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Take voice technology, for instance. In “Preparing for a Voice Commerce Future Report: Gen AI Raises the Bar on Consumer Expectations for Smart Voice Assistants,” PYMNTS Intelligence drew on a survey of more than 2,900 individuals to explore consumer demand for a voice ecosystem that connects multiple devices and facilitates more complex activities.

The results revealed that 13% of consumers in the United States are now using the technology to schedule doctor’s appointments, highlighting the potential of voice assistants to handle sensitive tasks and streamline healthcare processes.

An example of how voice technology is taking its place as a digital pathway to improve patient experience is through the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistants.

Earlier this month, Notable announced the launch of an AI-powered assistant to its automation platform for patient engagement and staff workflows, using generative and conversational AI to help patients interact with the healthcare system.

With this tool, patients can manage multiple tasks from appointment scheduling to bill payments using their native language and voice commands, offering a seamless and personalized healthcare journey for each patient. Additionally, the AI assistant can understand and answer questions in over 130 different languages, making it accessible to a wide range of patients. Real-time insights and reports generated by the assistant also enable health systems to gain a deeper understanding of patient needs and preferences.

“The addition of the Notable Assistant to our platform continues to set the bar for outcomes our health system partners can achieve,” Notable CEO and co-founder Pranay Kapadia said at the time. “It allows them to deliver a differentiated patient experience and enable their care team members to practice at the top of their license, all while embracing the latest in AI in a safe and responsible way.”

The news came as the healthcare sector is projected to nearly double its spending on AI next year to 10.5%, up from 5.5% in 2022. According to Morgan Stanley, while 94% of healthcare companies are using AI and/or machine learning (ML) in some capacity, “it has yet to reach its full potential as a driver of new business opportunities and efficiencies.”

Kalle Conneryd-Lundgren, chief operating officer at pan-European HealthTech firm Kry, shared this view. He put the healthcare sector at the top of the list when assessing industries set to benefit the most from the transformative power of AI.

“I will go as far as saying that I can’t see any sector that has the same sort of embedded potential as healthcare in terms of using … generative AI like ChatGPT,” Conneryd-Lundgren told PYMNTS in an interview posted in April, adding that “it will be hard for any healthcare provider not to utilize AI in the long term. You simply won’t be effective [without it].”

However, concerns about personal and financial security remain a top priority for consumers and patients alike partly because voice technology is largely device-based and lacks seamless integration across multiple devices and applications. To assuage these concerns, advancements in voice operating systems aimed at achieving a fully integrated voice economy will be crucial, the PYMNTS Intelligence study stated.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.

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By the Numbers

For PYMNTS’ recent study “Preparing for a Voice Commerce Future Report: Gen AI Raises the Bar on Consumer Expectations for Smart Voice Assistants,” we surveyed more than 2,900 U.S. consumers about how they use voice technology, among other related matters. The results revealed that 11% use the technology to make reservations at restaurants.

This finding could be useful for restaurants, considering that, with ongoing labor and margin challenges, many eateries are looking to automate wherever possible. By going after these voice-engaged consumers, restaurants can remove work from the reservation-taking process on their end.

In fact, PYMNTS Intelligence from last year’s “Restaurant Readiness Index,” created in collaboration with Paytronix, which drew from a survey of more than 500 managers of quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and full-service restaurants (FSRs) across the country, found that only 14% of restaurants have their reservations/bookings operations mostly or fully automated.

The Data in Context

Indeed, digital reservations are increasingly part of restaurant operations.

On a call with analysts in July, American Express CEO Steve Squeri noted that the company’s Resy platform is seeing more reservations than ever.

“Q2 is a record quarter for restaurant reservations through our Resy platform,” he said.

Restaurants are not the only one looking to automate the process. OpenTable parent company Booking Holdings spoke to its own efforts in the space on its last earnings call.

“We mentioned last quarter that OpenTable and Kayak were experimenting with AI [artificial intelligence] plug-ins. And we will continue to examine all areas of our company to ensure we are taking advantage of AI-created efficiencies,” Booking Holdings President and CEO Glenn Fogel said. “We are confident in our company’s ability to benefit from AI development and improve our products for our customers given our many years’ experience in AI, our travel-related data and connections to our supply partners and our human and financial capital.”

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However, the traditional touchscreen interfaces that dominate these devices often limit their usability. Now, a new frontier has emerged in the form of voice technology.

In the report “How Consumers Want to Live in the Voice Economy,” PYMNTS leveraged insights from a survey of nearly 3,000 U.S. consumers to examine their views and attitudes toward voice technology, especially how they use voice today, the friction they face and what they expect from voice technology in the future.

One of the primary reasons consumers prefer voice technology over other methods is its ability to complete tasks faster, easier and more efficiently. Fifty-eight percent of consumers said using voice technology is easier and more convenient, while 54% said they appreciate its speed compared to typing or using a touchscreen. Additionally, 20% of consumers said voice technology is more secure, further enhancing its appeal.

Like the fascination with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies like ChatGPT, consumers are increasingly drawn to the “humanness” of voice technology, with some believing that voice assistants will eventually possess the same level of intelligence and reliability as humans. According to PYMNTS’ data, more than 60% of U.S. consumers trust that voice assistants will reach this level of sophistication, with 46% believing it will happen within the next five years.

Drilling down, the data showed millennials exhibit the highest level of optimism regarding the future capabilities of voice technology. Fifty-seven percent of millennials said they think voice technology will match human intelligence and reliability within five years, and 11% said it already has.

On the other hand, baby boomers and seniors are more skeptical, with 18% doubting that voice assistants will ever reach that level of sophistication.

Optimism for voice assistants is not limited to mere belief, as 30% of Americans expressed a willingness to pay a monthly fee for a reliable and intelligent voice assistant.

Among millennials, this figure rose to 43%, while only 5.8% of baby boomers and seniors shared the same sentiment. Higher-income consumers also displayed a greater inclination to invest in voice assistants, with 31% of them willing to pay more than $10 per month.

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The global payments provider has signed a deal with Amazon-approved partner The Digital Line (TDL) to become the exclusive payments provider in hospitality, globally, for Audico, a system that uses Amazon Alexa to deliver voice-driven services, the companies said in a Wednesday (May 17) press release.

“Virtual assistant technology is the future of hospitality, and we’re thrilled to be powering the payments behind Audico,” Elavon Merchant Services President in Europe Hemlata Narasimhan said in the release. “This is all about improving the customer experience, and a large part of this is seamless payments.”

Audico has already been implemented at the Ascot Racecourse in southeast England, where it allows premium customers to use audible commands to make purchases from their private boxes, relays those commands to staff as a card-not-present transaction, and enables payment to be made using a predetermined account, according to the press release.

TDL and Elavon are also exploring using Audico in premium hospitality areas at other venues, for room service in hotels and for services in the healthcare industry, the release said.

“This partnership represents a unique opportunity for two recognized brands to collaborate on initiatives that will revolutionize multiple business verticals, including hospitality, venues and healthcare, delivering a level of digital transformation not seen before,” The Digital Line CEO George Vaughan said in the release.

As PYMNTS reported Monday (May 15), automation could fill an urgent need in the hospitality industry.

For one thing, both hotels and restaurants have been experiencing staffing shortages across the board in recent years.

In addition, customers are hungry for digital experiences when they travel, with about 3 out of 4 customers saying that they want to use their mobile phones to check in to hotels, pay and order food, and that they believe artificial intelligence (AI) could tailor individualized experiences and amenities for them.

Both customer-facing and back-end functionalities lend themselves to automation, with digital tools replacing many processes previously done manually, according to “Can Automation Solve Labor Shortages in the Hospitality Sector?,” the May edition of the “Hospitality Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and LS Retail collaboration.

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Connected devices are rapidly entering a modern hands-free, voice-driven era, as next-generation advances are made in voice recognition technology and increasingly being brought to market across a wide variety of conversational commerce use cases.

This, as findings from PYMNTS’ landmark March 2023 study, “How Consumers Want To Live In The Voice Economy,” finds that around four in every ten consumers believe it will be less than five years until voice recognition technology is advanced enough to make speaking to voice assistants comparable to speaking with actual humans.

Younger generations, like bridge millennials and millennials, believe that time is even closer — and may be here already.

Read More: Consumers Want to Live in a Conversational Voice Economy

More than one in ten members of the millennial (11.4%) and bridge millennial (10.6%) generational cohorts say that they already consider the experience of interacting with artificially intelligent (AI) voice tools today to be as comparably smart and reliable as talking with a human.

For consumers who want to enhance their everyday routines by making commonplace actions smarter, simpler, and more connected, hands-free voice technologies offer a transformative opportunity.

Currently, 63% of consumers say they would use voice if it were as capable as a person, while 58% would use voice because it is easier and more convenient and 54% because it is faster than typing or using a touchscreen.

Around a third of Americans, or 168 million consumers, already use voice to conduct at least six different everyday tasks like getting information, turning TVs and appliances on and off, and ordering food, groceries, or Ubers.

What’s more, many consumers say they are willing to pay for advanced, human-like voice services.

Still, 12% of the nearly 3,000 consumers surveyed by PYMNTS believe voice technology will never be able to replicate the experience of talking to a living, breathing person.

Underscoring that notion is the fact that voice applications are still primarily single-device-driven and used mainly for simple tasks, a reality that suggests building trust in the accuracy and security of voice-assisted transactions remains a key challenge to driving voice adoption and making it ubiquitous across all commerce channels.

For more information on how voice is helping drive the next evolution of the connected economy, and what opportunities it might hold for your organization, view the findings in PYMNTS landmark free study, “How Consumers Want To Live In The Voice Economy.”

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