Yum! Brands is pushing back on the wave of AI backlash with a simple claim: when automation removes friction, workers can stay longer. At the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Santa Barbara, Calif., chief legal officer and corporate secretary Erika Burkhardt said Taco Bell’s drive-thru AI has helped increase employee retention by making restaurant jobs easier.
Burkhardt said the company has learned through the drive-thru experience that AI can take away the tension points of the ordering process. That, she said, lets team members focus more on the product and the hospitality with the customer.
The fast-food chain has been experimenting with automation to improve order efficiency, and the rollout has not been flawless. Last year, one Taco Bell customer appeared to troll a location’s drive-thru by ordering 18,000 water cups through the automated system. Even so, there is evidence the company is still leaning into the technology. In July, Taco Bell expanded the use of Omilia Voice AI in drive-thrus to nearly 900 locations.
Burkhardt said the company sees the rollout as a learning process, and one that can make the business better. That is the central business case for AI inside a restaurant: if the tool raises productivity, cuts repetitive friction and improves retention, management gets more stable labor and better execution at the counter.
Other companies on the automation front are telling a similar story. Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean, chief corporate affairs officer at DoorDash, said the company has integrated AI so deeply into its workflow that it becomes routine rather than a debate. DoorDash introduced Dash Buddy for new Dashers, and Jarvis-Shean said the app can answer about 95% of questions in real time.
Ami Badani, chief marketing officer of semiconductor firm Arm, said AI has already helped the company release corporate communications faster and respond to industry announcements more quickly. She said the technology will be additive, helping human productivity and allowing the company to do things it was not able to do before.
The market has already voted on the broader question inside corporate America: businesses are not waiting for the culture war to settle before using tools that improve margins, speed and service. If AI makes work easier and keeps employees on the job longer, capital will keep flowing toward it.
That is the part critics often miss. The taxpayer is not footing the bill for this shift; companies are paying to automate tasks they think should be faster, cleaner and less wasteful. If the results hold, the winners are management, workers who want simpler jobs, and customers who get quicker service. In that sense, the real test is not whether social media likes AI. It is whether the numbers come first.
