Selling voice AI for restaurants? Get in line. | Photo: Shutterstock
The race is on to grab a piece of the restaurant AI pie.
Just this week, two startups specializing in voice AI—Vox AI and Loman AI—announced funding rounds to help them grow.
Vox, which specializes in drive-thru AI, raised $8.7 million in a seed round led by Headline. The company is based in Amsterdam but is expanding globally, with plans to open an office in San Francisco.
Austin-based Loman raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Next Coast Ventures. The startup offers an automated phone system that can answer questions and take orders.
They are just the latest names in a growing pool of companies that want to use artificial intelligence to help restaurants automate their drive-thrus and phone lines and operate more efficiently.
Adoption of the technology is in its early stages, but it has been picking up speed. Large fast-food chains such as Taco Bell and Wendy’s are rolling out drive-thru AI to hundreds of locations. Smaller brands such as Bojangles, White Castle and Taco John’s are also expanding it to more stores.
Likely even more restaurants are using AI on the phone to automate orders, take reservations and tackle customer questions.
Until recently, the market has been dominated by a handful of mature players, such as Presto, Hi Auto, ConverseNow and SoundHound, as well as tech giants like Google and IBM.
But in the past two years, new suppliers have begun to pop up as demand grows and the barriers to entry come down thanks to advances in large language models.
Vox was founded in 2023, while Loman is just over a year old. Other upstarts such as Incept AI, Palona AI, Maple and Revmo.ai were all founded since 2023.
In many cases, these newcomers believe they can improve on the existing options. Incept, for instance, has focused on improving audio quality, while Vox’s technology is fluent in more than 90 languages. Palona has worked on making AI more personalized, with agents that can be customized to fit a restaurant’s branding and personality.
The companies say they can help restaurants lower their labor costs while also increasing their revenue thanks to more consistent upselling capabilities.
But questions remain about AI’s ability to handle orders accurately without human help, especially as they scale. Some systems are still monitored by remote workers who can step in if there’s a problem, for instance.
And embarrassing glitches do happen. Earlier this week, a story circulated about an AI voicebot at White Castle that charged a customer $15,400 after accidentally adding hundreds of additional items to their order.
Still, some view voice automation as inevitable, especially as the AI improves as it is designed to do.
“Restaurants have tried voice for years, but the AI wasn’t ready. It is now,” said Eric Pakravan, a partner at TenOneTen Ventures, which contributed to the Loman funding round. “We are seeing strong pull from independents through enterprise. That is rare at seed.”
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