SoundHound buys Allset to bring AI voice ordering to more drive-ins

AI voice company SoundHound has acquired food ordering platform Allset, which positions itself as a comprehensive ecosystem for food ordering via cars, TVs and smart devices.

Allset’s employees, including founders Stas Mativiyenko and Anna Polischuk, will join the company, the company said in a statement. Allset’s restaurant partnerships will also transfer to SoundHound and will have access to the company’s AI speech products.

The acquisition comes after other fast-food brands are rethinking the use of customer-facing AI. McDonald’s announced it has paused a project with IBM that uses AI to automate order taking in drive-thrus after a series of ordering mishaps were documented on social media. The experiment began in 2021.

SoundHound provides speech recognition and generative AI models for voice assistants in restaurants, automotive systems and smart home devices. The company worked with fast-food chain White Castle last year to experiment with AI voices and handle drive-thru orders. Its other customers include automakers Stellantis, Hyundai, Kia and Honda. The company also partnered with AI search platform Perplexity to develop SoundHound’s AI assistant. Allset, founded in 2015, offers an alternative to delivery apps.

Expansion of language ordering

SoundHound said that by bringing in Allset, the company will have more years of experience in the grocery space and bring in more technology that will allow consumers to order groceries and other goods using natural language.

“Together, we plan to provide people with dynamic and convenient ways to order food and conduct a range of other transactions simply by speaking naturally,” said Keyvan Mohajer, co-founder and CEO of SoundHound, in a statement.

Restaurants and fast-food chains have been experimenting with generative AI for several years to take customer orders and improve customer service. Wendy’s is partnering with Google for its FreshAI platform, which uses AI speech recognition and natural language to understand customer orders in drive-thru stores. Before McDonald’s paused its AI ordering project, executives said at VentureBeat Transform last year that they were using AI for predictive analytics and data analysis.