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Burger King is rolling out an AI-powered headset system called "BK Assistant" at 500 of its US locations. The technology monitors interactions between staff and customers while overseeing general store operations. According to a company spokesperson and promotional materials, the system analyzes employee conversations to generate "friendliness scores" for each restaurant.
The company says the technology is not designed to "record conversations or evaluate individual employees".
An AI chat-bot dubbed "Patty", embedded in the headsets, answers questions from employees about how to prepare menu items and flags when a product needs restocking. But its ability to monitor restaurant staff tees up a debate about surveillance.
Burger King's chief digital officer told online publication The Verge 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 said.
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 parent 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.
Burger King said that it had explored "using aggregated keywords, such as common hospitality phrases" to understand the overall service being offered and to "recognise teams who deliver great hospitality".
Customer service calls have routinely been recorded and monitored for years. Employees are often aware that they can be assessed to ensure they're using the correct language.
But this latest step by Burger King elicited swift condemnation among some social media users who described it as "dystopian". Others questioned how accurate the chat-bot headsets will be, given that AI tools have proven to be prone to errors.
