![](\"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/FtMwmb.jpg\")
<\/div>\nTaco Bell is rethinking its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to power drive-through restaurants in the US after comical videos of the tech making mistakes were viewed millions of times. <\/p>\n
In one clip, a customer seemingly crashed the system by ordering 18,000 water cups, while in another a person got increasingly angry as the AI repeatedly asked him to add more drinks to his order.<\/p>\n
Since 2023, the fast-food chain has introduced the technology at over 500 locations in the US, with the aim of reducing mistakes and speeding up orders. <\/p>\n
But the AI seems to have served up the complete opposite. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Taco Bell’s Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dane Mathews told The Wall Street Journal that deploying the voice AI has had its challenges. <\/p>\n
“Sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said the firm was “learning a lot” – but he would now think carefully about where to use AI going forwards, including not using it at drive-throughs.<\/p>\n
In particular, Mr Matthews said, there are times when humans are better placed to take orders, especially when the restaurants get busy. <\/p>\n
“We’ll help coach teams on when to use voice AI and when it’s better to monitor or step in,” he said. <\/p>\n
The issues have been building online as disgruntled customers take to social media to complain about the service – with many pointing out glitches and issues.<\/p>\n
One clip on Instagram, which has been viewed over 21.5 million times, shows a man ordering “a large Mountain Dew” and the AI voice continually replying “and what will you drink with that?”.<\/p>\n
It isn’t the first time there has been issues with AI not getting it right when it comes to processing food and drink orders. <\/p>\n
Last year McDonald’s withdrew AI from its own drive-throughs as the tech misinterpreted customer orders – resulting in one person getting bacon added to their ice cream in error, and another having hundreds of dollars worth of chicken nuggets mistakenly added to their order.<\/p>\n
But despite some of the viral glitches facing Taco Bell, it says two million orders have been successfully processed using the voice AI since its introduction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Published at Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:33:42 +0000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters Taco Bell is rethinking its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to power drive-through restaurants in the US after comical videos of the tech making mistakes were viewed millions of times. In one clip, a customer seemingly crashed the system by ordering 18,000 water cups, while… Continue reading Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}