Dive Brief:
- ConverseNow, a conversational artificial intelligence firm that makes voice-based ordering bots, has acquired Valyant AI, a rival in the drive-thru voice AI market, ConverseNow announced Tuesday.
- While terms of the deal were not disclosed, ConverseNow said the acquisition would speed up “both companies’ shared mission to revolutionize the quick service restaurant industry” through the deployment of voice AI.
- Both firms have drawn support from restaurant companies. CKE began deploying Valyant’s tech at a number of its restaurants last year and ConverseNow, in 2022, drew $10 million in funding from Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer’s Enlightened Hospitality Investments.
Dive Insight:
ConverseNow highlighted Valyant’s ability to integrate with existing restaurant software systems as a major advantage. Valyant’s AI tool works directly with a variety of dive-thru communications systems including PAR, HME, and POS systems, like Brink, Xenial, NCR, Aloha, and Oracle Microsystems, the company said.
Valyant’s whole team and all of its technology are included in the deal, the press release states. That includes a new generative AI chatbot Valyant has developed, which “enables restaurant staff to ask on-the-job questions to a voice assistant and receive instant, hands-free responses.” The tool, which has already been piloted by Valyant AI, will be available in drive-thru communications systems by the end of the quarter, according to the press release.
Existing customers will not experience an interruption to their service and will continue to receive technologies under their respective brands.
While generative AI has been a hot topic since late 2022, its benefits are not clear. Last month, Goldman Sachs released a report outlining a series of limitations of generative AI, including the massive investment in data centers, power grids and other infrastructure necessary to increase the efficiency of AI tools. One professor estimated that generative AI would only contribute 0.5% to labor productivity growth in the next decade, according to the report.
Major QSR brands have been testing drive-thru AI in recent years, with Wendy’s allowing franchisees to test the tech this year, though the results have been ambiguous. McDonald’s test with IBM is in the process of ending this month, though the Golden Arches did not clarify why it was sunsetting the tech. As of March, Presto Automation’s voice AI required human intervention in roughly 70% of orders, and the revenue generated by voice-AI was not enough to compensate for the end of Presto’s major tablet deals.
