- Panera Bread has come through with Tori, a new AI technology to boost its drive-thru experience. The voice AI ordering system was developed by OpenCity and will allow drive-thru customers to make their orders at the speaker as usual, which frees up staff members to concentrate on preparing orders, reduce wait times at the drive-thru and increase order accuracy.
- OpenCity has raised $6.82m from private investors, giving the business a valuation of $26.82m and it currently has more than twenty businesses that use its technology, including one Popeyes store.
- Tori has been put in select establishments and will be evaluated in order to determine whether the new technology should be added to more Panera restaurants, about 45% of which have drive-thru lanes.
Why it matters
Panera is the most recent restaurant to make an investment in enhancing the drive-thru experience with McDonald's (MCD, $255.66) announcing a partnership with IBM last year as part of its efforts to automate its drive-thru lane. Panera has experimented with leveraging automation to enhance the customer experience and announced its use of Miso Robotics’ CookRight Coffee system last year.
