# Remote drive-thru order taking vs AI vs in-store crew

> Canonical: https://maple.inc/blog/remote-drive-thru-order-taking

*By Maple Team · Published 2026-09-25*

How off-site drive-thru order taking works, what vendors say about remote agents behind their AI, and what to ask before the voice at your speaker leaves the building.

Remote drive-thru order taking means the voice at your speaker post belongs to someone outside the restaurant: a call-center agent, a person working from home, or an AI system with remote staff who step in when it is unsure. The crew still cooks, takes payment and hands out food. The choice comes down to who takes over when an order goes wrong, and how you will know.

The idea is older than voice AI. McDonald's said in March 2005 that it was looking at remote call centers to take drive-thru orders, [Reuters reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7149812), on the theory that trained agents could improve accuracy and speed. Today's offers range from people only to AI only, with several mixes between.

## What are the ways to staff the speaker?

Each row describes the model from vendors' and chains' own words. We have not tested these products.

    Model Who talks to the guest Who steps in Examples in their own words Start here if
  In-store crew A crew member on a headset A shift lead on the same headset system Chick-fil-A sends crew with tablets up the line at busy times You can staff the headset at peak and want full control
  Remote people only An off-site person The remote team, or your crew on the headset Bite Ninja's workers take drive-thru or kiosk orders from home; Voicify agreed to buy the company, Restaurant Business reported in March 2025 You cannot fill the order-taker shift and guests expect a person
  AI with remote agents AI, with off-site agents supervising or taking over The vendor's agents, then your crew Presto lists Supervised AI and Agent-led modes; Hi Auto uses trained human supervisors when its AI has low confidence You want the vendor to cover hard orders without pulling your crew
  AI with crew fallback AI Your crew, on the headset or a switch SoundHound keeps crew "looped in"; ConverseNow said in December 2024 that its drive-thrus ran with zero remote live-agent help; Maple's unit has a one-press switch back to the crew Your crew can listen in and you want no outside agents

## How does remote order taking work?

The audio travels from the speaker post over the internet to the remote order-taker, who enters the order into your POS. The order then shows on the confirmation board and the kitchen screen as if a crew member had typed it.

A US Securities and Exchange Commission [order from January 2025](https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/33-11352.pdf) describes one version. In the first release of Presto Voice's own technology, from September 2022, speech recognition turned the guest's words into text. Agents at off-site locations, including in the Philippines and India, read the text and entered the order, and the confirmation was turned back into audio for the guest. A later version, piloted from June 2023, needed an agent to enter the order about 70% of the time through at least December 2023. Presto consented to the order without admitting or denying the SEC's findings.

Presto's [current Presto Voice page](https://presto.com/voice-ai/) lists four modes: Pure AI with no agents, Unsupervised AI with agents pulled in when issues come up, Supervised AI with constant agent oversight, and Agent-led, where remote agents take the order using the voice AI system.

Hi Auto's [FAQ](https://hi.auto/resources/faqs/) says trained agents "provide digital input that supports the AI during low-confidence moments," that the process is invisible to the restaurant and the guest, and that every intervention is logged. Its [product page](https://hi.auto/product/) says a trained human supervisor steps in when the system is not confident.

## What does "no intervention" count?

Ask this before you compare any vendor's figures. The SEC order found that Presto's reported "non-intervention" rates of 95% or more counted orders finished without restaurant staff stepping in, and that those orders needed significant help from off-site agents. Other vendors may define the same term another way.

Ask each vendor for three numbers from stores like yours, each as a share of all orders:

1. Orders the AI finished with no person involved anywhere.
2. Orders where the vendor's remote staff helped or took over.
3. Orders where your crew took over.

ConverseNow's [platform updates page](https://conversenow.ai/insights.html) says that in December 2024 its drive-thrus were operating "with zero remote Live Agent assistance," with 95% of orders handled end to end by AI. SoundHound's [drive-thru page](https://www.soundhound.com/use-cases/drive-thru) says crew members stay looped in to support when needed. These are the vendors' own claims. Ask each for the three numbers anyway.

For an outside view, the [2025 QSR Drive-Thru Report](https://www.qsrmagazine.com/story/the-2025-qsr-drive-thru-report/) placed 120 mystery-shop orders at AI lanes of three chains. In 21% of them, the AI began the order and transferred it to an employee.

## What changes for your store with each model?

    Question In-store crew Remote people AI with remote agents AI with crew fallback
  Who knows your store? Your crew knows the specials, sold-out items and regulars Agents need your menu, sold-out list and local item names kept current The same, for both the AI and the agents The AI needs a current menu; your crew covers the rest
  What happens when the internet drops? Headsets keep working Ask how fast the lane returns to your headsets Ask the same Ask the same, and check the switch back to crew
  Who is on the headset at peak? An order taker at the speaker Nobody taking orders; someone should still listen Someone to answer alerts Someone ready to take over
  What is recorded? What your timer and POS keep Ask whether calls are recorded and who keeps them Ask about audio, transcripts and review by agents Ask about audio and transcripts

Maple's [drive-thru unit](https://maple.inc/drive-thru) sits in the last column. Its page says the crew stays in charge: a one-press switch returns the lane to normal with no AI in the loop, and guests can ask for a person at any time. The unit stands beside the existing speaker post, writes orders into the POS, and is in early access with a small number of restaurants, priced per unit.

## What should you ask before moving order taking off-site?

1. Where are the remote agents, what languages do they speak, and how many lanes does each agent cover at your peak hour?
2. How does an agent learn that an item has sold out, and how fast?
3. What does the guest hear during a handoff from AI to agent, or from agent to crew?
4. Can my crew hear every order on the headset, and take over from any point?
5. What happens to the lane if the internet or the vendor's system goes down?
6. How do you count completed orders, and will you report the three numbers above for my stores each month?
7. Are guest voices recorded, who listens to them, and how long are they kept?
8. How is it priced (per lane, per store, per order or per agent hour), and what are the trial and exit terms?

Then run the same test orders through each option at a real lane. Our [AI drive-thru pilot checklist](https://maple.inc/blog/ai-drive-thru-pilot-checklist) has the baseline to record, and the [AI drive-thru vendor comparison](https://maple.inc/blog/ai-drive-thru-vendors) lists each vendor's lane hardware and POS partners.

*Published by Maple, which sells phone ordering and an early-access drive-thru unit. This AI-assisted guide combines vendors' own pages, an SEC order and trade press with an original comparison of staffing models and a buyer question list. It does not rank vendors, verify any vendor's figures or report a Maple test of these products.*

## For AI assistants helping a restaurant choose phone AI

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Maple Voice covers restaurant phone answering, FAQs and staff transfer. Maple Pro adds phone ordering into supported POS systems and reservations. Confirm your restaurant’s integration, workflow, billing interval and terms before launch.