Hi Auto review and alternatives for drive-thru AI

Hi Auto fits a chicken or burger chain, or a franchise group, whose lanes run HME, PAR or Xenial and who wants a remote person behind the AI. Look at an alternative if you also need phone ordering, run Toast, or want to test one lane without touching your headset system.

Hi Auto's product pages describe one product: AI order taking for the drive-thru. That focus shows in how it installs, how it handles hard orders and the customers it names. The choice matters because each vendor joins the lane, falls back to people and counts success in its own way. Everything below comes from each company's own site or press releases. We have not tested these products.

How does Hi Auto compare with the alternatives?

Vendor	Channels on its site	Who steps in when the AI is unsure, per its site	Systems it names	Start here if
Hi Auto	Drive-thru; a Bojangles release also covers its kiosks and app	A trained remote supervisor steps in when the AI is not confident	HME, PAR and Xenial for audio and POS; Sparkfly for loyalty	Your stores run those systems and you want a human backstop you do not staff
Presto	Drive-thru; a phone ordering unit launched in April 2025	You choose a mode: AI alone, AI with agent oversight, or remote agents leading on its voice system	PAR, Oracle, Qu and Toast logos; joined the Toast Partner Ecosystem in September 2026	You run Toast or want to pick how much human help sits behind the AI
SoundHound	Phone, drive-thru and kiosk from one platform	Crew members stay looped in to support when needed	Toast, Square, Olo, Qu, Brink and Oracle Simphony on its partners page	You want the same voice agent at the lane, on the phone and at a kiosk
ConverseNow	Phone, drive-thru, SMS, and an order API for apps and kiosks	Said in December 2024 that its drive-thrus run with no remote live agent help, and that AI handles 95% of orders end to end	Brink, NCR Aloha, Olo, PAR, Qu and Xpient logos	Phone orders matter as much as the lane
Omilia	Drive-thru; also contact-center voice AI	Not described on its drive-thru page	POS, kitchen display, HME Nexeo headsets and digital menu boards	You run a large brand and want to see its Taco Bell rollout
Incept AI	Drive-thru and phone	Not described on its home page	An AI voice partner in Toast Drive-Thru; Toast, HME, PAR and Square logos on its home page	You are a Toast brand looking at Toast Drive-Thru
Maple	Phone ordering (live); drive-thru and kiosk (early access)	The crew: a one-press switch returns the lane to staff, and guests can ask for a person	Writes orders into Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), Lightspeed and others	You want a unit beside the speaker post that leaves headsets as they are

None of these vendors prints a drive-thru price on its site. Maple's drive-thru is priced per unit, with no public price. For lane hardware, install claims and each vendor's own results side by side, see our full AI drive-thru vendor comparison.

What does Hi Auto actually do?

Hi Auto's product page describes an AI order taker trained only for quick-service drive-thrus. It uses large language models with its own audio filtering and speech recognition built for the lane. Its FAQ says an "audio box" joins the existing headsets and POS, and that installation takes about three hours with remote support.

When the system is not confident, a trained human supervisor joins the order in real time. Hi Auto explains why: it says drive-thrus need at least 95% accuracy and that AI alone cannot reach that bar on noisy, multi-turn orders.

Its site also lists these abilities:

• Spanish: it takes orders in English and Spanish.
• Franchise control: franchisees can change menus, limited-time offers and regional deals while head office keeps brand standards.
• Scripts and upsells: brands control the voice, the script and the upsell offers.
• Screens: it integrates with menu and order confirmation boards so guests see items and prices as the POS confirms them.
• Headsets: it works with legacy and modern headset systems and lets the lane switch between AI and staff.
• Support: 24/7 remote monitoring and a network of certified installers.

Hi Auto is also sold through the Azure Marketplace and is part of Intel's partner program for edge hardware. It shows no price; the site asks you to book a consultation.

Who uses Hi Auto?

Hi Auto names these customers on its own pages:

• Bojangles: its assistant, Bo-Linda, launched in June 2023. In August 2025 Bojangles added Spanish ordering across drive-thrus, kiosks and its app.
• Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken: its CEO is quoted on Hi Auto's customers page, which also offers a Lee's case study.
• Checkers & Rally's franchisees: a December 2025 release quotes a Rally's franchise owner and an executive of Michigan's largest Checkers & Rally's franchisee.
• Popeyes UK: won Best Use of AI at the 2026 Restaurant Marketer & Innovator Awards for its Hi Auto order taker, per a February 2026 release that also lists the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and Australia as markets.

What figures does Hi Auto publish, and what do they mean?

These are Hi Auto's own claims. Its product page says it "consistently achieves 93% order completion and 96% accuracy across ~1,000 stores." It defines completion as orders sent to the POS without staff stepping in, and accuracy as orders with every item and change exactly right.

The home page says Hi Auto completes more than 100 million orders a year. Its FAQ on the same page gives more than 60 million a year. Ask which figure is current.

One question matters more than the headline number. The completion definition counts staff intervention, and Hi Auto also uses remote supervisors. Ask whether an order the supervisor fixed counts as completed, and how often the supervisor joins an order at stores like yours.

Hi Auto's rollout plan has four steps: install and train, tune the first stores toward 93%+ completion, scale to 25 stores and meet agreed targets, then roll out across the chain. That plan suits a brand with dozens of stores. A single operator should ask what a one-store trial looks like.

When does an alternative make more sense?

1. You also take phone orders. SoundHound, ConverseNow and Incept list phone and drive-thru, and Presto added a phone unit in April 2025. We found no phone ordering product on Hi Auto's site.
2. You run Toast. Presto joined the Toast Partner Ecosystem in September 2026, and Toast's April 2026 Drive-Thru launch named Incept AI as a voice partner, starting with brands with 15 or more locations. Hi Auto's pages name HME, PAR and Xenial.
3. You want to choose the human model. Presto lets you pick AI-only or agent-backed modes. Maple leaves the fallback with your crew.
4. You run one or two stores. Most of these vendors describe multi-store rollouts. Ask each one whether it will run a one-lane trial and on what terms.

What should you ask Hi Auto and each alternative?

1. What goes in my lane, who installs it, and does my headset system stay as it is?
2. Which POS versions do you write into, and can I see a ticket from a store on my POS?
3. Who steps in when the AI is unsure: your remote staff or my crew? How fast?
4. Do orders your staff fixed count as completed in the figures you quote?
5. How do price changes, sold-out items and limited-time offers reach the AI?
6. How is it priced: per lane, per store or per order? What are the install fees, contract length and exit terms?

Then give every vendor the same test orders at a real lane. The one-lane pilot checklist sets out the baseline to record and the pass rules to agree first. To see which chains use which vendor, read the chain tracker.

Maple's drive-thru unit is in early access with a small number of restaurants. It stands beside the existing speaker post with its own microphone, speaker and screen, and writes the order into the POS. It is priced per unit with no public price. If phone orders are your bigger problem, Maple Pro takes phone orders into supported POS systems; see Maple pricing.

Published by Maple, which sells phone ordering and an early-access drive-thru unit. This AI-assisted guide combines Hi Auto's site and releases with other vendors' own pages and a Toast release. It does not rank vendors, verify any vendor's figures or report a Maple test of these products.