Taco Bell AI drive-thru rollout stalls after trolls order 18,000 water cups

Taco Bell’s bold AI drive-thru experiment hit a wall after trolls exposed its flaws when one ordered 18,000 water cups in a viral prank that forced the fast food giant to rethink its high-tech rollout.

I remember (“back in the day” alert) ordering Taco Bell in a Miami drive-thru when I studied there.

My British accent confused the Latina who took my order, and a crunchy taco actually became a chicken quesadilla. I didn’t mind, I was just slightly befuddled.

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Now, many years later, the mother of all hiccups has occurred – thanks to one provocateur who ordered 18,000 cups.

Taco Bell, which has deployed voice AI at over 500 locations since 2023, has successfully placed over two million orders without many hitches.

But now, the prank has sparked online ridicule, as the tannoy sputters out before a human worker intervenes and asks “What can I get for you?.”

This kind of prank has caused the fast food chain to alter its course, as Chief Digital Officer Dane Matthews admitted that AI “lets me down sometimes.”

Matthews told The Wall Street Journal that the company is currently weighing up hybrid stations.

“For our teams, we’ll help coach them: at your restaurant, at these times, we recommend you use voice AI or recommend that you actually really monitor voice AI and jump in as necessary,” he explained.

This could help the company by allowing AI to offer that much-needed bit of extra support during peak hours.

While the prank was a deliberate exaggeration of what can go wrong with interacting with AI customer service, it flips the script on when customers ruffle their feathers over incompetent artificial service.