AI agents for restaurants: phone, drive-thru and kiosk voice agents

An AI agent for a restaurant is software that talks with a guest and then acts in your systems. It answers the phone, takes an order and sends it to the POS, books a table, or hands the call to staff. Most independent restaurants meet one on the phone first. Drive-thru and kiosk agents need equipment on site and are further from the average store.

The useful question is what the agent can finish on its own and where it has to pass the guest to a person. That depends on your menu, your POS and the rules you give it.

How does a restaurant voice agent work?

Every voice agent runs the same loop on each turn of the conversation.

1. It turns the guest's speech into text.
2. It works out what the guest wants: an order, a question, a booking or a person.
3. It checks your menu, prices, hours and rules.
4. It acts: adds an item, asks which size, books the table or transfers the call.
5. It speaks the reply and waits for the guest.

A phone menu ("press 1 for hours") routes the call and stops there. An answering service puts a person on the line. A voice agent does the talking itself and, with a POS connection, can write the order into the POS. Ask any vendor what your setup will do with an order: enter it in the POS, send it to a tablet or pass a message to staff.

Where do restaurants use voice agents?

Where	What the agent does	What you need	Start here if
Phone	Answers questions, takes pickup and delivery orders, books tables, transfers to staff	Call forwarding to the agent, a supported POS for orders, a reservation system for bookings	Calls go unanswered while staff serve guests in the room
Drive-thru	Takes the order at the speaker and shows it on a screen	Lane hardware, a POS connection and a crew member who can take over	The lane sets your pace and someone is tied to the headset
Kiosk	Lets the guest speak the order while the cart builds on screen	A kiosk, a POS connection and a staff-help path	The counter line backs up at peak
Back of house	Answers staff questions about recipes, steps or policy	Your handbook and procedures loaded into the tool	New staff keep stopping managers with the same questions

Several vendors sell more than one of these. SoundHound's restaurant page lists phone, drive-thru and kiosk ordering on one platform, plus a staff assistant. Square added AI-Powered Voice Ordering for phone calls in October 2025, sending confirmed orders to the kitchen or POS. Maple sells phone answering and ordering today, with a drive-thru unit and a voice kiosk in early access with a small number of restaurants.

The drive-thru is where the big chains test. Omilia said in July 2026 that its voice AI runs in more than 890 Taco Bell drive-thrus in 38 states. Our tracker of chains using AI at the drive-thru lists the others with dates.

What can an agent finish, and what should reach staff?

Request	What the agent needs from you	How to check it in a trial
Hours, address, parking, allergens	Current answers, including holiday hours	Ask each question two ways and compare with your posted answers
New pickup or delivery order	A menu with sizes, required choices and modifiers, and a supported POS	Place an order with a change halfway through and compare the ticket line by line
Reservation	A connected reservation system and your party-size rules	Book, move and cancel a table, then check the book
Payment by phone	A payment method your provider supports for your location	Pay for a test order and check the payment status on the ticket
Complaint, refund or change to a placed order	A named staff member and a fallback when nobody answers	Ask for a refund and check who gets the request
Large or catering order	Your rules on lead time and deposits, and a staff owner	Ask for 40 people next Friday and check what staff receive

The last two rows usually belong to staff. Our phone handoff checklist sets out who owns them and how to test the transfer.

How many restaurants use AI agents now?

Still a minority. In the National Restaurant Association's 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report, 26% of operators said they use AI tools and 6% said they use AI for customer orders, Restaurant Dive reported in February 2026. Marketing was the most common use.

Guests are mixed. In the same report, 46% of consumers said they would like to order online through an AI chatbot, per Restaurant Business. In September 2026, Burger King said some guests in its drive-thru tests drove off because they did not want to talk to a bot, and that it is making it easier to reach a person, Restaurant Business reported. Whatever agent you choose, give guests a quick way to reach staff.

What does an AI agent cost?

Some vendors do not print a price, so ask each one for a written quote on the same menu and call volume. Maple prints its phone plans on its pricing page: Voice, for answering, FAQs and transfers, is $150 a month billed monthly or $85 a month billed yearly. Pro, which adds orders into the POS and reservations, is $350 a month billed monthly or $220 a month billed yearly.

Maple's drive-thru unit and kiosk are priced per unit, with no public price. To work out whether phone ordering pays for itself, use the break-even method in our guide to whether voice ordering is worth it.

How do you test an agent before it takes live calls?

1. Write down the five calls you get most, from your call log or staff.
2. Prepare the menu: sizes, required choices, modifiers, items that run out. Our menu preparation worksheet covers this.
3. Check that your POS is on the vendor's list. Maple's is on its integrations page.
4. Place test orders with a change halfway through, an item that is out, and an abandoned payment.
5. Ask for a person, with staff available and with nobody free, and see what happens both times.
6. Count completed orders, orders staff had to fix, and calls passed to staff, each on its own line.
7. Run the same script with every vendor you compare. Our restaurant voice AI comparison gives a shared test for this.

Which channel should you try first?

For most single restaurants, the phone. It needs no new equipment, the calls come in whether or not anyone is free, and you can test it on a forwarded line before you touch your main number. Try the lane or a kiosk first only if that is where guests wait longest. Our guide to phone ordering versus drive-thru voice AI walks through that choice, and Maple's homepage shows its restaurant voice products in one place.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines vendors' own product pages and releases, trade press reports of National Restaurant Association and chain data, and Maple's published plans. It does not report a test of any vendor or promise a result for your restaurant.