Burger King’s chief digital officer told online publication The Verge, external that the fast-food outlet had trained the OpenAI-powered system to identify terms including “please” and “thank you” in order to evaluate staff friendliness.
The system analyses audio from drive-thru interactions.
All US Burger King restaurants are poised to have access to the BK Assistant AI platform by the end of 2026, a company spokesperson told the BBC.
The tool is “designed to streamline restaurant operations” to let managers and staff “focus more on guest service and team leadership”, Restaurant Brands International, the chain’s parents company, said in a statement on Thursday.
One promotional video for the new AI assistant features the “Patty” chat-bot notifying an employee that a machine is running low on Diet Coke. Another worker asks “Patty” for a recipe reminder.
But the video also highlights an element of the tool that has started to generate backlash online: its ability to closely monitor employee behaviour.
“The team’s friendliness scores this morning were the highest this week,” the chat-bot tells a staff member through her headset.
