Dive Brief:
- Yum Brands deepened its AI pursuits last quarter to capitalize on its digital transformation momentum carried over from the last year according to its Q2 2024 earnings call.
- The company is working with a startup in the AI space to leverage its first-party data assets and plans to roll out AI voice technology at Taco Bell drive-thrus. Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, is working to integrate and scale reinforcement learning, an ML approach that trains models to respond with the most optimal results.
- “As we mature, we find ways to operate more effectively internally, organize better, and that allows us to get more done at lower costs,” CFO Chris Turner said Tuesday. “And we’ve got strong governance of our tech spend in place.”
Dive Insight:
Restaurants and food companies hope a sharpened technology strategy can help respond to changing consumer and employee trends and expectations.
Wendy’s doubled down on its digital strategy to drive customer loyalty and growth, Zaxby’s hired its first chief digital officer in July and several other brands added AI technologies to back-office and front-office operations.
Yum welcomed Joe Park as chief digital and technology officer in March. Park previously held the same title at Pizza Hut Global, where he was responsible for implementing several new technologies, including an AI system that manages orders.
Park joined as the company was ramping up the second phase of its digital transformation. The company has accelerated the deployment of foundational platforms, such as its point of sale system, e-commerce platform and data and AI assets, as part of the initial stage.
“The first phase of this journey is focused on acquiring, building and scaling a comprehensive suite of owned platforms that enable ownership of our data, control the digital ecosystem, speed of innovation and cost advantages through scale leverage,” Turner said.
Now, the company plans to continue AI investments, seeing the technology as a driver of the long-term health of the business. Yum said in May it had more than 40 AI initiatives in progress across the company for marketing, operations, insights, engineering and internal back-office functions.
“In the next phase, we are focused on maximizing the value creation potential of our platforms through AI and leveraging our extensive data assets,” Turner said. “We believe we are still only scratching the surface of the full value creation potential of our capabilities.”
