Restaurant Dive wants to know how your business is approaching automation throughout the restaurant, whether that’s in the kitchen, dining room or drive-thru lane.

Over the past few years, droves of operators across segments have rolled the dice on labor-saving technology that can increase throughput, improve order accuracy and create seamless experiences for guests. Diner acceptance of automated restaurants is improving, too. Sixty percent of surveyed consumers are now “somewhat likely” to order from restaurants that automate some or all food production, compared to 54% in 2021, according to a June Deloitte study.

Kitchen robotics have proven particularly popular, especially for fast-paced QSR chains looking to free up workers from menial prep work so they can focus on customer engagement. Chipotle, for example, recently began testing Vebu’s “autocado” robot, which cuts, cores and peels up to 25 pounds of avocados at once and could halve the time it takes to prep guacamole in the future. In June, Sweetgreen announced all of its new restaurants will be automated with its Infinite Kitchen system, which dispenses salad ingredients into a bowl but lets employees handle initial prep and finishing touches. 

Automation is also coming to the drive-thru lane. Earlier this week, White Castle announced it will add SoundHound’s voice artificial intelligence at over 100 drive-thrus by the end of next year. SoundHound claims this technology has a 90% order completion rate, and that average orders are taken and processed within 60 seconds. CKE, Wendy’s, Del Taco and Panera have also dipped their toes into AI voice technology. 

Answer the survey linked below to tell us if automation is part of your current or past operations, and what your experience with such technology has been like. The results of this survey will be published next week.