64% of Americans Interested in Ordering Food Via Voice Assistant: Survey

People want to order food at restaurants via voice assistants, according to a new survey from The MDR Group and Progressive Business Insights. More than two-thirds of adults are interested in using voice AI to arrange food orders.

Artificially Intelligent Food Ordering

The online survey analyzed the answers from September of this year of 346 U.S. adults who order from or eat at restaurants an average of more than two times a week. The survey was based on integrating a voice assistant into a phone system using MDR’s #250 mobile speed dial system. Customers dial #250 and a digital assistant answers. The customer would then tell the voice assistant which restaurant they wanted food from and their food order. The voice assistant takes the order, understands any changes that are made to it over the course of the call, answers questions about the menu, and handle payment over the phone.

The majority of respondents expressed some level of interest in the technology, with almost two in five extremely or very interested. A full 90 percent thought it would be easier to use the phone system than remembering exactly which restaurant in a chain they wanted to call.

Ordering Ahead for Tech

MDR has a vested interest in seeing this use case of voice technology become popular. MDR originally created #250 as a way to provide audio advertisers with a faster way to connect with listeners of their content. The idea is that when a potential customer is driving and hears an ad on the radio they can call #250 and use a keyword mentioned in the ad to get the interactive AI to connect them to the business instead of having to remember a web address. Adding the option of ordering food from the restaurants that are advertising could open a new revenue stream for MDR.

That doesn’t mean the data are compromised, however. There’s a lot of potential in using voice assistants in restaurants, especially drive-thrus at quick service restaurants (QSR). McDonald’s has started testing using voice AI in drive-thrus, even acquiring voice tech startup Apprente to achieve its goals in that regard. And Denver’s Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard started adding voice assistants created by Valyant AI to its drive-thrus starting earlier this year.

Th #250 approach is a different approach to using voice assistants for ordering food. #250 is more like a vocal DoorDash or other food-ordering apps that handle the transaction with the restaurant. The level of comfort with arranging food orders through voice assistants is definitely on the rise, it’s just a question of what shapes the ordering systems will take.

Follow @voicebotai    Follow @erichschwartz

McDonald’s Acquires Voice Startup Apprente to Build Drive-Thrus With Voice Assistants

Denver Startup Brings Voice Assistant Tech to Drive-Thru Can Soon Replace Human Roles

McDonald’s Launches Job Application by Voice for Alexa & Google Assistant