Who knew a business operation as refined and everpresent as the fast food drive-thrus still had room for experimentation? But if you happened to visit a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Dubai within the past few months, it’s possible you were an unwitting participant in a high-tech language trial.
In keeping with the ambitious technological push in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, AI-powered drive-thrus are the latest Arabic-language tech twist to reach the United Arab Emirates. The goal is to offer a multilingual menu experience through Chris, a handy AI assistant that seamlessly switches languages while offering specials and order upgrades tailored for each consumer. The technology is powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, running on OpenVino and delivering low-latency, real-time responses to customer queries.
Developed by United Kingdom-based AI company Sodaclick and rolled out by Americana Group, the operator of KFC throughout the Middle East, the hope is to reduce overhead, increase revenue through customized order suggestions, and limit language barriers as GCC countries court increased tourism and international business.
“Excited to share that we have launched the first multilingual conversational voice AI for a KFC drive-thru in the UAE, in collaboration with Intel Corporation and Americana Restaurants,” said Mina Mustafa, business development manager at Sodaclick. “Huge thanks to the mighty and awesome team at Sodaclick, especially our marketing star Salwa Al-Tahan, and our visionary leaders Ihsan Jan and Ibrahim Jan.”
According to TravelsDubai, the partnered companies are pleased with the initial results, claiming that the trial phase yielded an 86% rate of personalized upsell offers with “customer acceptance reaching 75% during peak times.” Those who accepted the special offers boosted order value by an average of 8.5 AED or $1.70 USD.
“Beyond boosting revenue, Chris delivers a smoother experience for customers and acts like an extra team member,” drive-thru manager Vinesh Reddy Teepi told TravelsDubai.
Sodaclick co-founder Ihsan Jan claims the trial delivered on all key-performance indicators and represents a major milestone for fast-food technology. But other AI drive-thru rollouts have evidently been less than smooth.
The BBC reported in August that Taco Bell began rethinking its AI rollout following reports of customer dissatisfaction, glitches, order mistakes, and system crashes. Many of the episodes went viral on social media, like a system crash following a customer order of 18,000 waters.
Other famous mishaps included an AI system asking a customer what kind of drink they wanted along with their large Mountain Dew. And that’s just Taco Bell — McDonald’s paused its AI drive-thru rollout in 2024 after widely publicized snafus like the system attempting to add bacon to an ice cream order.
"Sometimes it lets me down, but sometimes it really surprises me," Taco Bell Chief Digital and Technology Officer Dane Mathews told The Wall Street Journal.
On the other hand, the multilingual AI systems on trial in Dubai provide a potential solution for a prominent pain point: seamless multilingual ordering between the dialect-heavy Arabic and English languages. Should the partnered businesses find the experiment satisfactory, Americana Group may well introduce the technology to other restaurants it manages throughout the region