Yum Brands Gains New Partner, Proprietary AI Tech

After running a pilot at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut units, the brand plans to implement AI in 500 restaurants in the second quarter of this year.

March 19, 2025

Select Taco Bell and Pizza Hut units tested out AI in a pilot which will continue to grow this year.

Taco Bell parent company Yum Brands is furthering its adventures with AI with a fresh provider partnership announced this week.

“This partnership will enable us to harness the rich consumer and operational data sets on our Byte by Yum integrated platform to build smarter AI engines that will create easier experiences for our customers and team members,” explains Joe Park, chief digital and technology officer of Yum Brands, Inc. and president of Byte by Yum.

According to a release, AI will be instrumental in three key areas:

• Conversational AI that adapts to human speech patterns, understands complex menus and customer preferences will be used at the drive-thru and in call centers.

• Computer vision will optimize drive-thru efficiency and back-of-house labor management through real-time analytics and alerts.

• AI-driven analytics and agents will assess restaurant performance, generating personalized action plans for restaurant managers based on best practices from top-performing locations.

Looking ahead, Yum says it will expand AI to help team members manage complex tasks, “including AI agents that plan, reason and act to assist across restaurants.” A second quarter expansion of the AI rollout will cover all four brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill).