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If you ask Michael Chorey, “Can AI take your order?” The answer is a resounding “yes.”

The founder and chief inventor of Wendy’s FreshAI has departed from the burger chain and joined AI automation provider Presto as cofounder and president of its new division, Presto IQ.

Over the last three years, Chorey helped Wendy’s build an AI that he says can take customer orders faster and more efficiently than a worker wearing a headset. Now, he’s betting the same tech will reshape the entire fast-food industry, one drive-thru at a time.

The move marks a major shift for Chorey, who’s stepping out of the corporate kitchen and into the broader world of tech providers with a plan to personalize — and partially automate — interactions between restaurants, their workers, and their customers.

It’s also a signal that the fast-food segment is rethinking its approach to AI.

“This unlocks the future of what hospitality means, starting in the drive-thru,” Chorey told Business Insider.

Chorey spent three of his five years at Wendy’s working to bring FreshAI to life. By the time he left the company in early August, he said the chain, which started testing the AI voice assistant in 2023, had implemented AI ordering at 300 drive-thru sites and planned to roll out the tech at as many as 600 locations by year’s end.

Representatives for Wendy’s did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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Business Insider previously reported that Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner told investors in February that the FreshAI system, created with Google Cloud, “gives customers the opportunity to build their orders.”

Despite early customer concerns about ease of use and accuracy, Tanner said he personally tests the technology a few times a week at a Wendy’s location near the company’s headquarters, adding that FreshAI “understands what to ask for, and the accuracy definitely is improving.”

The AI rollout race at a drive-thru near you

Wendy’s isn’t the only chain that has rolled out AI-powered ordering assistants in recent years, but it is among the furthest along in implementing the technology.

In 2021, McDonald’s began testing an AI ordering system it created in collaboration with IBM, but rolled it back after videos showing flaws in the tech went viral in 2023, and ended the program in June 2024, Business Insider previously reported. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported McDonald’s had struck a new deal, this time with Google, to revisit how to integrate AI across its global portfolio.

Yum Brands, the parent company of chains including KFC and Pizza Hut, announced last July that it would expand the use of its AI-powered drive-thru assistant to hundreds of Taco Bell locations by year’s end, in addition to five KFC locations in Australia, Business Insider reported.

Presto’s technology is already being tested at major chains like Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, both owned by CKE Restaurants, as well as Wienerschnitzel and Yoshinoya.

Representatives for the chains did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Automated service with a smile

Chorey said the main benefit — and challenge — of his work with Presto is expanding the technology to work seamlessly for each of the different brands and their customers.

“If you listen to orders during lunchtime versus orders in the middle of the day, the way the human crew members talk to the customer changes, the way customers talk to the human crew member changes, and that changes even more with each brand,” Chorey said. “Effective AI platforms are able to adapt, just like our human crew members, to create a very consistent experience, every time you come to a restaurant.”

As AI becomes more mainstream in the fast food sector, the Presto team knows the tech will disrupt the workers on the other end of the drive-thru box.

Krishna Gupta, the cofounder and co-CEO of Presto, told Business Insider he expects there to be no human operators taking orders at drive-thrus within the next three years. Still, he added, “nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I want to take orders all day.’”

“So now you can go to that person and say, instead of doing that monotonous, repetitive, boring work, you can actually create the food and make orders and serve people with a smile,” Gupta said. “And that’s my hope for AI tech broadly, is that it enables all of humanity to do that, and serve the higher purpose of our lives.”

For the brands considering implementing the technology, Gupta and Chorey said it’s less a matter of “if” and more a matter of “when” they need to get on board, given the continuously evolving needs of the dining industry.

“Fast food is fast, and it’s only going to get faster — this is a very competitive landscape,” Chorey said. “Brands need to be able to make decisions quickly; they need to be able to adapt on the fly, whether it’s an operator at the restaurant or leadership within a broader brand, and these voice AI agents give them that ability.”

The drive-thru lanes were just the beginning. With AI agents already capable of upselling your order of french fries, the next evolution of fast food is smart, scalable — and increasingly inhuman.

Do you work at Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or another fast-food restaurant and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected]