SoundHound AI Supports Church’s Texas Chicken® to Power Voice AI Ordering at the Drive-Thru

Rhea-AI Summary

SoundHound AI (Nasdaq: SOUN) has announced a partnership with Church's Texas Chicken to implement its voice AI-powered drive-thru ordering solution. The Dynamic Drive-Thru system provides instant audiovisual feedback and processes natural verbal commands, designed to streamline ordering and reduce wait times.

The technology can handle up to 90% of orders without human intervention, allowing restaurant staff to focus on order fulfillment and customer service. The system features continuous audiovisual feedback, ignores off-topic speech for improved accuracy, and maintains the option for customers to speak with staff if preferred.

Positive

• Partnership with major quick-service restaurant chain expands market presence
• Technology capable of handling 90% of orders without human intervention
• Solution addresses real business efficiency needs in quick-service restaurant sector

Negative

• Pilot phase implementation indicates early stage of revenue potential
• No specific financial terms or revenue impact disclosed

Insights

Tech Analyst

The partnership with Church's Texas Chicken represents a significant commercial deployment for SoundHound AI's Dynamic Drive-Thru solution. The system's 90% autonomous order completion rate demonstrates strong technical capabilities, potentially reducing labor costs and improving operational efficiency. The continuous audiovisual feedback feature and natural language processing abilities address key challenges in drive-thru automation. This deal with a major QSR chain validates SoundHound's technology in a high-volume, real-world environment and could serve as a reference case for future enterprise sales. The integration with Church's point-of-sale systems and operational workflows also showcases SoundHound's ability to deliver enterprise-grade solutions, which is important for scaling in the QSR market.

Market Research Analyst

This deal marks strategic expansion in the lucrative QSR sector, where drive-thru operations typically account for 60-70% of sales. Church's Texas Chicken's global presence, with over 1,500 locations worldwide, provides SoundHound AI significant scaling potential. The QSR industry's ongoing labor challenges and rising wages make AI automation increasingly attractive to operators. While initial deployment details and financial terms aren't disclosed, successful pilot results could lead to broader implementation across Church's network. The partnership also positions SoundHound competitively against rivals like OpenAI and Google in the growing voice AI market for enterprise applications.

Popular Chicken Chain Pilots SoundHound’s Award-Winning Voice AI Ordering System at the Drive-Thru to Streamline Orders, Reduce Wait Times, and Empower Staff

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- SoundHound AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in voice artificial intelligence, today announced details of a deal with Church’s Texas Chicken®, one of the largest quick-service chicken restaurant chains in the world, to provide the global chain with a voice AI-powered drive-thru ordering solution.

SoundHound AI today announced details of a deal with Church’s Texas Chicken®, one of the largest quick-service chicken restaurant chains in the world. (Photo: Business Wire)

Church’s Texas Chicken drive-thru guests will have the option to place their order using SoundHound AI’s Dynamic Drive-Thru solution. This breakthrough AI voice platform offers instant, continuous audiovisual feedback in response to verbal commands, allowing guests the ability to communicate their order as if they were talking to a human. The system is designed to ignore off-topic speech to increase the accuracy of order placement.

“At Church’s, our guests’ experience is extremely important to us and we are always looking for innovative ways to help improve service and the overall guest engagement,” said Ahnaf Ali, Chief Information Officer of Church’s Texas Chicken. “SoundHound’s AI technology will enable us to process orders faster with greater efficiency, reduce wait times and streamline team workflows.”

SoundHound’s voice AI technology enhances drive-thru efficiency by promptly greeting customers, quickly taking orders, visually confirming requests, and listing options to speed up transactions. Dynamic Drive-Thru also increases the order throughput potential by allowing the restaurant crew to focus on fulfilling orders through the pickup window – with up to 90% of orders completed without human intervention. If customers would prefer to speak with a member of staff, they will still have that option.

“Integrating our technology into Church’s Texas Chicken restaurants marks a significant milestone in drive-thru innovation,” said James Hom, Chief Product Officer at SoundHound AI. “With Dynamic Drive-Thru, consumers can speak naturally as they would to a human and have the same customer experience they’re used to, while adding the benefit of helping busy employees seamlessly process orders and focus on providing what matters most – preparing great food and offering excellent customer service."

SoundHound’s proprietary technology is backed by millions of hours of voice data and an annual query run rate of multiple billions. To learn more about restaurant solutions from SoundHound AI, visit www.soundhound.com.

About SoundHound AI

SoundHound (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in conversational intelligence, offers voice AI solutions that let businesses offer incredible conversational experiences to their customers. Built on proprietary technology, SoundHound’s voice AI delivers best-in-class speed and accuracy in numerous languages to product creators across automotive, TV, and IoT, and to customer service industries via groundbreaking AI-driven products like Smart Answering, Smart Ordering, and Dynamic Drive-Thru, an AI-powered multimodal food ordering solution. Along with SoundHound Chat AI, a powerful voice assistant with integrated Generative AI, SoundHound powers millions of products and services, and processes billions of interactions each year for world class businesses.

About Church’s Texas Chicken® / Texas Chicken™

Founded in San Antonio, TX in 1952 by George W. Church Sr., Church’s Texas Chicken®, along with its sister brand Texas Chicken™ outside of the U.S., is one of the largest quick-service chicken restaurant chains in the world. The brands specialize in Original and Spicy Chicken freshly prepared throughout the day in small batches that are hand-battered and double-breaded, tenders, sandwiches, freshly baked Honey-Butter Biscuits™, and classic, home-style sides all for a great value. Church’s Texas Chicken® and Texas Chicken™ have more than 1,500 locations in 22 countries and global markets and system-wide sales of more than $1.4 billion. Owned by High Bluff Capital Partners and FS Investments since 2021, Church’s® celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2022.

For more information, visit www.churchs.com and texaschicken.com. You can also follow Church’s Texas Chicken® on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. More details on franchising opportunities are available at https://franchise.churchstexaschicken.com or https://franchise.texaschicken.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241211684472/en/

Media Contact

Gianna Arantes

201-815-9852

PR@SoundHound.com

Source: SoundHound AI

FAQ

What is the success rate of SoundHound AI's Dynamic Drive-Thru system at Church's Texas Chicken?

The system can handle up to 90% of orders without human intervention, allowing staff to focus on order fulfillment and customer service.

How does SoundHound AI's (SOUN) drive-thru system work at Church's Texas Chicken?

The system provides instant audiovisual feedback to verbal commands, processes natural language orders, ignores off-topic speech, and allows customers to communicate as if speaking to a human.

What benefits does SOUN's Dynamic Drive-Thru bring to Church's Texas Chicken operations?

The system helps process orders faster, reduces wait times, streamlines team workflows, and increases order throughput by automating the ordering process.

Can customers still speak to human staff when using SOUN's drive-thru AI at Church's?

Yes, while the system handles most orders automatically, customers still have the option to speak with a staff member if they prefer.