If you’ve pulled up to a Dairy Queen drive-thru recently and felt like something was off about the voice greeting you, you’re not imagining things. Dairy Queen is rolling out AI voice technology to take your order at dozens of locations across the U.S. and Canada. And a lot of customers are not happy about it.
The chain has partnered with a company called Presto Phoenix to bring automated voice ordering to its drive-thru lanes. After testing the tech at company-owned stores, Dairy Queen is now expanding to franchised locations in at least 25 states and Canadian provinces. The goal? Eventually put the technology in all 3,000 of its North American drive-thrus. That’s a massive shift for a chain that has built its reputation on small-town charm and friendly service.
What Exactly Is Changing?
Instead of a human employee taking your order through the speaker box, you’ll be talking to a voice bot. The AI system is built by Presto Phoenix, a Silicon Valley company that also provides the same tech to Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Taco John’s, and Fazoli’s. When you pull up and say you want a Blizzard and a basket of chicken strips, the bot processes your order, confirms it on screen, and sends it to the kitchen. No human involvement required for most transactions.
Dairy Queen’s executive vice president of IT, Kevin Baartman, said in a press release that the AI lets staff “focus on high-value tasks that ultimately benefit our Fans, with a friendly experience, and high order accuracy.” The company timed the first phase of the rollout to coincide with ice cream season, which is smart from a business standpoint. That’s when Dairy Queen locations are busiest and lines are longest.
Customers Are Pushing Back Hard
The backlash started almost immediately. Social media lit up with complaints from people who don’t want to talk to a robot when they’re ordering a sundae. One Reddit user summed up the frustration: “I hate fast-food AI in general. Nine out of 10 times the employees need to take over anyway.” Others said they specifically choose Dairy Queen for the more personal, laid-back experience compared to bigger chains, and that replacing humans with bots kills that vibe entirely.
The numbers back up the frustration. A January 2025 YouGov survey found that 55% of Americans said they would prefer a human to take their drive-thru order. Only 4% said they’d prefer an AI chatbot. Four percent. Even among people who had actually used an AI drive-thru system before, just 14% said they’d choose the bot over a person. So the vast majority of customers who have tried it still don’t like it.
The “It’s Not Really AI” Problem
Here’s where things get interesting, and a little uncomfortable for Dairy Queen. Back in 2023, Bloomberg investigated Presto’s AI systems and found something surprising. The “AI” taking drive-thru orders at some locations was actually being monitored and assisted by human workers based in the Philippines. When the bot couldn’t understand an order because of accents, background noise, or complicated customizations, a real person overseas would step in and handle it.
That raises a pretty obvious question. If you think you’re talking to a computer but you’re actually talking to a person in another country, what exactly is the point? Presto has said the human assistance is part of the “training process” and that the AI handles most interactions on its own. But neither Dairy Queen nor Presto has publicly clarified whether the current system still uses overseas workers or if it’s now fully automated. That lack of transparency is not a great look, especially when you’re asking customers to trust the technology.
How Accurate Is the AI, Really?
Presto claims its system can process about 90% of orders without a human needing to step in. That sounds decent until you think about what it means in practice. If you serve 200 cars a day, that’s 20 orders that go wrong or need a human to fix. At a busy location during ice cream season, that number could be even higher.
Taco John’s, which uses the same Presto technology, says its AI bot (nicknamed Olena, after the chain’s Potato Oles) handles between 90% and 93% of orders independently across its 45 AI-equipped locations. That’s after three years of using and refining the system. For Dairy Queen, which is just starting to expand beyond test stores, the accuracy rate could be lower as the bot learns the menu and customer habits at new locations.
Early adopters of drive-thru AI across the fast-food industry have reported mixed results. Some people say the experience is fine, even fast. Others complain about robotic-sounding voices, awkward pauses in conversation, and systems that can’t handle simple substitutions. If you’ve ever tried to modify an order through a phone tree and wanted to scream, you have some idea of what this can feel like.
It’s Also Designed to Upsell You
This part doesn’t get enough attention. The AI isn’t just there to take your order faster. It’s programmed to encourage you to add more items to your order. Every single time. Presto markets this as “consistent upsells” and pitches it to restaurant chains as a way to increase revenue.
Think about it this way. A human employee during a lunch rush is focused on getting people through the line. They might skip the “would you like fries with that” pitch because there are 15 cars behind you and everyone’s in a hurry. An AI bot doesn’t feel that pressure. It will suggest add-ons, larger sizes, and extras to every customer, every time, without hesitation. For Dairy Queen, if that pushes average order totals up even a few percentage points, the system pays for itself quickly. For you, it means every trip through the drive-thru comes with a sales pitch baked into the interaction.
Why Dairy Queen Is Doing This Anyway
Despite all the pushback, the business logic is straightforward. Labor is expensive and hard to find. Drive-thru ordering is one of the most repetitive, high-turnover positions in the restaurant business. If a bot can handle 90% of orders, that’s one fewer person you need to schedule during every shift. Multiply that across 3,000 locations and the cost savings are enormous.
An industry study also found that AI-powered drive-thrus were actually faster than human-staffed ones, though they scored lower on friendliness. Speed is the metric that matters most in the drive-thru world. Chains have been obsessed with shaving seconds off order times for decades. If AI can do that consistently, the corporate math works out regardless of how customers feel about it.
Dairy Queen also isn’t operating in a vacuum. Wendy’s has partnered with Google on drive-thru AI. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s already use Presto. Industry analysts estimate the drive-thru automation market could be worth $1.5 billion by 2028. The pressure to keep up is real.
McDonald’s Tried This and Pulled the Plug
Worth mentioning: McDonald’s had its own AI drive-thru partnership with IBM, and it ended in 2025 because of accuracy problems. That’s a cautionary tale for any chain betting big on this technology. If the largest fast-food company in the world couldn’t make it work reliably, it’s fair to wonder whether Dairy Queen’s version will actually hold up at scale.
One restaurant technology leader recently described the current state of AI ordering as being stuck in an “uncanny valley,” that uncomfortable zone where the technology is close enough to human interaction to feel familiar but different enough to feel wrong. Customers can tell they’re not talking to a person, and for many of them, that’s a dealbreaker.
What This Means for Your Next DQ Run
The rollout is happening in phases, starting with several dozen locations over the coming weeks. Dairy Queen hasn’t published a full list of which stores are getting the AI treatment, so you might not know until you pull up and hear a slightly too-cheerful voice ask for your order. A human employee is supposed to be available as a fallback for complex orders or situations where the bot struggles.
If you’re someone who orders a plain vanilla cone, the AI will probably handle it fine. If you’re the type who wants a custom Blizzard with three mix-ins and no whipped cream, substituted for a different size, hold the cherry? Good luck. Those kinds of orders are exactly where these systems tend to fall apart.
The bigger question is whether customer anger will change anything. Dairy Queen says its pilot tests showed double-digit improvements in customer satisfaction scores, but that’s hard to square with the overwhelmingly negative public response. It’s possible the people who had good experiences just aren’t as loud on social media. It’s also possible Dairy Queen is going to push forward regardless of what customers think, because the financial incentives are too strong to ignore.
Either way, the days of a friendly teenager asking “What can I get for you?” at the Dairy Queen drive-thru are numbered. Whether that matters to you probably depends on how you feel about talking to a machine when all you wanted was a Dilly Bar.
