SoundHound AI takes over Allset and focuses entirely on voice orders

If you’ve ever heard Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones narrate a documentary or commercial, you know how enchanting a voice can be. SoundHound AI is betting that consumers will continue to appreciate this basic pleasure of ordering meals, even if the words aren’t coming from Freeman, Jones, or a real human.

Mike Zagorsek, COO of SoundHound AI

“Voice is the next big wave of human-computer interaction,” says Mike Zagorsek, chief operating officer at SoundHound AI, which recently acquired online ordering platform Allset. “We are creatures of language. Using your voice for a transaction is the most natural way to do things. The key is to make the interaction conversational.”

Even if it is artificial. The question for operators is: if an authentic conversation is desired, why not keep the exchange between two people? The answer is clear. One of them costs money. And you may need more than one.

“We ask restaurants if they are able to answer the calls that come in. We hear that they are too busy to answer the phone. It just rings. Or people are put on hold. Then we ask: If you could answer the calls reliably and consistently at a relatively low cost, not miss a call and even handle multiple calls at once, would that be worth something? Quite often they say yes,” Zagorsek said.

Almost doubling of presence

More than 10,000 restaurants have already adopted SoundHound AI. And with Allset, there are now 7,000 more locations. Zagorsek is looking forward to scaling.

“If you’re sitting in your car and doing a voice search for nearby restaurants, we already give you those results, but the next evolution is to interact directly with the restaurant. And so Allset, whose heritage is in platform integrations and food ordering using traditional methods, was very conscious of that long-term vision. They have a great portfolio of restaurants, a lot of small restaurants that they thought would welcome our current AI solutions, especially our phone answering capabilities,” he said.

Handling calls is one thing. Soundcloud AI also provides operators with a platform for drive-thrus. While some well-known QSRs have struggled with Voice AI in drive-thrus, White Castle has had success, according to Zagorsek.

“Our technology is currently in use in a few dozen locations,” he said, “and White Castle has announced that it plans to be in 100 locations by the end of the year. White Castle tells us that orders are being processed faster and more accurately than before.”

Try not to rush

Although Zagorsek obviously wants to register more restaurants, he issues a warning to the operators.

“Drive-thrus are widely seen as a huge opportunity for AI, but you have to understand that it’s not easy to set it up and use it. You can’t just say, ‘OK, we’ll do this’ and it gets done. That’s difficult. You have to have the technical know-how and experience with voice technology. If you don’t have that, there can be obstacles,” he said.

Zagorsek explains that Soundhound AI, which launched eight years ago with a voice platform designed for cars, is in a unique position to make AI not theoretical and confusing, but practical and useful.

“The internet wave was 20 years ago. Then mobile took over. And now this. How can AI help restaurants? For us, the technology has to lead to some kind of service. It has to help you work faster and reach more customers,” he said. “Productizing these technologies is one thing. But we want to unlock other ways of interacting and transacting. Voice is a universal channel. Once you have a microphone and a connected device, it could be a gateway to all things. Right now, a lot of things are limited to screens, displays and browsers. We believe a voice commerce ecosystem will be the next chapter.”