AI language company SoundHound has bought food ordering platform Everything readywhich 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 corporate, the corporate said in a press release. Allset's restaurant partnerships can even transfer to SoundHound and can have access to the corporate's AI speech products.
The acquisition comes after other fast-food brands are considering using AI to serve customers. McDonald's announced that 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 the fast food chain White Castle to experiment with using AI voices to process drive-thru orders last yr. 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 a substitute for delivery apps.
Expansion of language ordering
SoundHound said that by bringing in Allset, the corporate can have more years of experience within the grocery space and convey in additional technology that can allow consumers to order groceries and other goods using natural language.
“Together, we plan to supply individuals with dynamic and convenient ways to order food and conduct a spread of other transactions just by speaking naturally,” said Keyvan Mohajer, co-founder and CEO of SoundHound, in a press release.
Restaurants and fast-food chains have been experimenting with generative AI for several years to take customer orders and improve customer support. Wendy's is partnering with Google for its FreshAI platform, which uses AI speech recognition and natural language to know customer orders in drive-thru stores. Before McDonald's paused its AI ordering project, executives said at VentureBeat Transform last yr that they were using AI for predictive analytics and data evaluation.
