Reinventing customer experience and loyalty in the QSR industry
In late 2024, Yum! Brands announced the US rollout of AI-enabled ordering across hundreds of Taco Bell locations. That initiative has proved so successful that it’s now developing the technology for all of its restaurants worldwide, spanning brands including KFC and Pizza Hut as well as Taco Bell.
It’s just one example of the accelerating move to harness the power of agentic AI in the US$1trillion fast-food industry ($167bn in the UK). And it’s a development that no company in this fast-moving sector can afford to ignore.
Understanding agentic AI
To explain why, let’s start by defining agentic AI. The technology builds on “traditional” AI by going well beyond the analysis and interpretation of data under defined rules. Drawing on a vast array of company, customer and third-party data, it reasons and learns autonomously to make a company’s services and offerings faster, more flexible and more personalised.
The effect? A transformed experience for the customer.
But agentic AI isn’t just a tool for companies.
Rising use of agentic AI on the sell-side is being mirrored on the buy-side among a rising generation of enthusiastic AI-friendly consumers. Frustrated with the increasingly messy and crowded online shopping world, they’re adopting AI agents themselves to make their lives easier and more convenient. In the last few weeks, major payment providers such as Mastercard, VISA, Stripe and Paypal have all announced they are opening their platforms to agentic systems, starting to grapple with Generative Search Optimisation (GEO) as agentic platforms show results based on a set of values very different from traditional search. Technology leaders are working out how best to integrate with these platforms in addition to dealing with impacts on their IT environments across a broad range of areas – from architecture, latency and cost, to data, governance and risk.
This demand for simpler, less cluttered shopping experiences is already being met by several innovative, well-funded companies, who are pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve by developing ever more sophisticated consumer-side agents. Examples include Google’s Project Mariner and Perplexity’s new AI powered shopping assistant developed in collaboration with Shopify.
As innovation continues, the future is taking shape. Over the coming years, we’ll see the emergence of an interconnected ecosystem of AI agents working as personal digital concierges on behalf of consumers. For QSRs to survive and thrive in the fiercely competitive fast-food market, they’ll need to ensure their own AI agents can communicate and transact seamlessly with these tools.
An unstoppable trend…
Our research among consumers globally underlines the scope and scale of the change now underway. We found that, by 2030, up to 55% of consumer purchasing activity across all industries will be driven by AI-friendly individuals. And a growing proportion of transactions will be executed by autonomous AI agents, working to help consumers get exactly what they want, when they want it, and at the right price – whether they’re searching for a vegan meal tonight or a new sofa next month.
What’s more, our study reveals that different consumers have differing levels of comfort with using AI at the three stages of the purchase journey: Learn (the discovery phase), Buy (the decision-making phase), and Use (the ongoing service relationship). The relative importance of each phase varies from industry to industry. But in QSR, they all have equal weighting – so companies must focus on all three.
Transforming both front-end and back-end operations
At first, it might sound like this only affects the customer-facing front-end. But think again. For companies to reap the full benefits, their AI agent-enabled front-end must communicate and integrate seamlessly with other agents at the back-end – using real-time customer and business data to manage and optimise key factors like stocking and staffing.
Take one example: the national team makes (unexpected) progress in a major sporting event, triggering an unseasonable spike in orders. By anticipating and managing such peaks, a QSR company can further differentiate its experience for customers – thus boosting both loyalty and return orders.
Finally, there’s another potential development to watch for. A few years ago, the digital-native food delivery companies disrupted the market. Now there’s an opening for an agentic AI-native to come in and add an intelligent aggregating layer above those players. If that happens, QSRs will have to understand how choices are made in this new ecosystem – and continually recalibrate their brands in the digital space accordingly.
Steps to take today
So, what actions do QSR groups need to take to be ready for this new world?
Here are four key areas to focus on.
1. Redefine customer engagement
To communicate and transact seamlessly with consumers’ intelligent digital agents, QSRs must invest in AI systems that can integrate with those agents; build trust by providing them with easy access to everything they need; and look beyond the transaction by building an online presence that’s regarded favourably both by consumers and their AI agents. For example marketing teams should look at the impacts of agentic on the brand strategy, in addition to ensuring product data and pricing are easily searchable by agentic platforms, and products easily surfaced.
2. Prioritise data
Agentic AI runs on data – so to compete in an agentic world retailers must transform their data capabilities. This means investing in advanced analytics; putting in place robust data governance and security; and ensuring interoperability with external platforms.
3. Increase supply chain agility
Agentic AI demands next-level responsiveness and flexibility from companies’ supply chains. To achieve this, they’ll need to manage inventory in real time; offer dynamic and responsive fulfilment options; and make sustainability a differentiator by meeting consumers’ demands for sustainable options.
4. Build up the ecosystem
Because agentic AI thrives on collaboration, QSR companies must foster partnerships to succeed. This will mean collaborating with tech providers; building cross-industry alliances; and participating in open-standards initiatives. Companies will have to solve for data, ethics and consumer trust. As AI-driven decisions increase, businesses will have to actively manage data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency to maintain consumer trust. Greater autonomy means that instead of investing their trust largely in brands, consumers will need to know how their data is being used, why certain options are suggested, and what controls they have. In this new world, governance and design ethics are commercial levers.
Blending efficiency and empathy
Bottom line: agentic AI is poised to reinvent the QSR industry. The companies that win out will do so by blending the efficiency and autonomy of AI agents with human empathy. That’s the future recipe for success in fast-food.
Businesses that adapt to this new reality will thrive.
- This article was provided by Cognizant. If you have any questions around agentic AI, and what it means for your business and your consumers, you can read Cognizant’s New Minds New Markets report.
