Yum! Brands, the parent company of well-known fast-food chains like KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill, is making strides in artificial intelligence (AI) implementation. The company has teamed up with NVIDIA to deploy AI solutions aimed at streamlining operations and enhancing customer service across its vast network of restaurants, according to NVIDIA’s blog.

AI Integration in Quick-Service Restaurants

The partnership was announced during the NVIDIA GTC conference, highlighting plans to introduce AI-powered agents in select Pizza Hut and Taco Bell locations. These agents are designed to assist staff and improve the overall customer experience. Yum! Brands aims to implement these AI solutions in 500 of its restaurants within the year.

World’s Largest Restaurant Company Embraces AI

With over 61,000 locations worldwide, Yum! Brands holds the title of the largest restaurant company globally. The company is renowned for its focus on food quality, value, service, and digital convenience. The introduction of AI technology is part of Yum!’s strategy to maintain its competitive edge in the industry.

Yum!’s digital technology team has been at the forefront of this initiative, unveiling their proprietary AI-driven platform, Byte by Yum!. This platform is set to enhance both customer and team member experiences by leveraging advanced AI technologies.

AI-Powered Customer Experiences

Generative AI technology is being utilized to automate ordering processes, which can significantly improve operational speed. However, the complexity and cost of scaling such solutions have been a challenge. The Byte by Yum! team has addressed this by employing NVIDIA’s NIM microservices and Riva to develop AI-accelerated voice ordering agents. These agents, running on Amazon EC2 P4d instances powered by NVIDIA A100 GPUs, are capable of understanding natural speech, handling complex orders, and suggesting add-ons, thereby increasing accuracy and customer satisfaction.

Expanding AI Solutions

The rollout of these AI solutions is already in progress, with voice AI agents being deployed across various brands to manage phone orders during peak times. The plan is to expand this technology to up to 500 restaurants this year.

Exploring Computer Vision and Operational Intelligence

In addition to voice AI, Yum! Brands is testing NVIDIA’s computer vision software to improve drive-thru traffic management and explore new AI use cases. The aim is to enhance service speed by optimizing staffing based on real-time analysis.

Yum! is also focusing on AI-accelerated restaurant operational intelligence. By using NIM microservices, the company can analyze performance metrics across its locations to provide managers with actionable insights, helping them replicate the success of top-performing stores.

The collaboration with NVIDIA and the integration of their AI Enterprise software platform streamlines AI development and deployment for Yum!, ultimately making restaurant operations more efficient and customer experiences more personalized.

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