Jobs in Tech: Restaurant sector turns to artificial intelligence

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The US doesn't have enough workers to fill open jobs and the labor shortage is becoming a widespread problem for the American economy. To deal with this, a new technology called conversational AI is being applied to the fast food sector to reduce the pressure on workers and fill the labor gaps. Hendrik Sybrandy has the story from Denver.

For years now, Americans have relied on fast food, often delivered right to their cars, to fuel their busy lifestyles. These restaurants are not going away. But some of the workers they depend on are.

ROB CARPENTER, CEO VALYANT AI "In the United States right now, there's a shortage of 800,000 positions within the fast food industry."

Good Times Burgers, a Colorado-based fast food restaurant, has found a way to address the problem. Since January, at this one Denver store, an automated order taker has handled breakfast traffic in the drive through lane.

ROB CARPENTER, CEO VALYANT AI "We're trying to be the absolute best company in the world for conversational AI ordering in fast food."

Rob Carpenter founded Valyant AI, the creator of an artificial intelligence system he claims is the first of its kind in the world. A pavement sensor recognizes a car pulling up.

"And we greet the customer, we say 'Welcome to Good Times."

"The customer will say something like I want a cheeseburger. We grab that audio, we send it up to our AI algorithm which translates it to text. We then insert that cheeseburger into the point of sale system, so that when someone pulls up they can pay."

Employees focus on filling the order. A third of their workload has been taken off their plate.

HENDRIK SYBRANDY DENVER "It's an example of how new technology could potentially transform the fast food industry, by reducing the pressure on workers and filling the labor gaps that exist right now."

Some restaurants already use robots for some tasks. Self-service kiosks have popped up to help customers order. And the new web platform imPloie.com matches workers with open restaurant shifts.

JOSE ESTRELLA, CEO IMPLOIE "Technology, if we do it correctly especially, it could help enhance us and really free us from doing monotonous work to do more creative and how do we make this better and more efficient."

THOMAS FREY, EXEC. DIR. DAVINCI INSTITUTE "All of this emerging technology that we're creating is giving us the tools of creation. It gives us the ability to create far more interesting new tools for doing things."

Futurist Thomas Frey says it'll take a while for AI to make a serious dent in the restaurant labor shortage. Carpenter points out that language-related bugs in the system are still being ironed out.

ROB CARPENTER, CEO VALYANT AI "We joke that it's been frustrating because I want a burger, okay I've added a burger to your order seems really simple until you start digging under the surface and it's extremely complicated."

But he says wait times in this lane have been cut 10-25 percent. Lunch and dinner AI service is coming soon at Good Times. Just two percent of all customers now ask to talk to a human.

"As long as they get their food and it's accurate they don't really mind."

Even if their interactions with their order-taker remain a little bit off. Hendrik Sybrandy, CGTN, Denver.