Ky. White Castle utilizing A.I. order-taking system

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - Dozens of industries are changing the times, and that means working to include new technologies like artificial intelligence.

A Frankfort location of White Castle uses an AI order-taking system to relieve team members.

Regional Director of Restaurant Operations Barbara Exline says the system is named Julia.

“Julia is interactive, she is an artificial intelligence that takes orders in the drive-thru, she enhances the customer’s experience by helping our team take the order,” Exline said.

When customers arrive at the Frankfort White Castle location, they must agree to Julia’s terms and conditions before she can assist them. If they are not interested in help from Julia, they can decline.

“They are able to say help, and that will prompt the headset to our team members, and then we can take the order ourselves so they’ll be able to be with a real person,” General Manager Elizabeth Paige said.

Customers like Charles Scott say, like all technology, there are some occasional hiccups— but he understands this may not be where the AI use stops.

“Any time you go online or you Google something, it’s AI giving you a response, the window, I guess, before too long AI and robots will be cooking our food,” Scott said.

Paige says team members were apprehensive at first, but have come to enjoy the extra intelligence deck.

“Feel like our community and people just keep an open mind about Julia, it’s definitely new, it’s just something that the world is kind of coming to,” Paige said.

Officials say this is the only Julia system in the region