AI & Orchestration
5 min
Operator Series #5: AI, It's emergence. It's future.
Scott Love
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Thirty years in QSR has taught me something about technology.
The industry doesn't resist it. It absorbs it.
Smarter POS systems. Receipt integrations. Better data. Loyalty programs. Inventory software. Kiosks. Mobile ordering. Every few years, something new arrives and the industry finds a way to fold it in. If it works, it gets used.
So I wasn't surprised when the industry moved toward AI systems. Nobody should have been. And to this point, the innovation's been impressive.
About That… The Current Model
Voice AI is where most of the conversation is right now. After all, it fits every instinct we have about what AI is supposed to look like: a system that steps in, handles the situation, and frees up a human to do something else.
The appeal to operators is straightforward. At an upfront cost, it's cheaper than wage. If it performs consistently, it removes variables that have always been difficult to control. And if it genuinely does the job better? That's a real argument worth taking seriously.
I respect the innovation. I really do.
Voice AI has certainly had its moments but isolated failures don't invalidate a technology. The honest truth is that the technology works. It takes orders. It moves cars. For many operations, it delivers exactly what it promises.
Working, though, isn't the issue.
What Voice AI Doesn't Solve
The problem with voice AI isn't capability. It's scope.
Like all other QSR tech, voice AI was built to solve one thing: the labor cost at the order point. And it solves it well. But by entering the transaction and exiting almost immediately, it leaves everything that happens after the fulfillment, the experience, the personalization, the handoff exactly as it was before.
It's another isolated solution to a singular problem. A good one. But isolated nonetheless.
Voice AI can take an order. But it can't recognize the customer. It can't surface context-relevant suggestions. It doesn't know your loyalty. It doesn't integrate payments. It doesn't enable cleaner handoffs. It replaces one person.
What we truly need is something that enhances an entire team—a unifier.
Where to Go From Here.
What operators need now isn't another point solution. It's a connector.
Something that runs intelligence through the entire transaction. That personalizes the interaction, enhances the order, matches the meal to the right car, and optimizes service speed. Something that tracks the performance of the team delivering it, and surfaces the data that helps an operator know what's working.
Not a replacement for the human connection. An upgrade to it.
That's what Vavoom is built to be. Not the next isolated tool in a growing tech stack. A unifier. The thread that runs through the whole transaction and makes every part of it smarter.
AI has arrived in QSR. The brands that win won't just be the ones that adopted it first.
They'll be the ones who figured out how to use it.