We already knew that Yum Brands, the parent of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, was serious about technology.
But its partnership with Nvidia will take it to a whole new level, setting a new bar for the rest of the industry in the process.
Last week, the two companies announced that they’re joining forces to bring AI-powered tools to about 500 Yum restaurants this year, starting with voice AI for the drive-thru at Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.
The deal brings together the largest restaurant company in the world by unit count in Yum and the premier artificial intelligence company in Nvidia, making it a blockbuster by any measure. The specifics make it even more intriguing.
Nvidia is primarily known for its chips, which are the fastest on the market in terms of processing power. Those chips are used in everything from voicebots to self-driving cars to the process of training AI models. They have become almost synonymous with artificial intelligence, which has fueled Nvidia’s rise into one of the most valuable companies in the world.
But Nvidia is about more than just chips. It’s what’s known in tech terms as a full-stack company, meaning it offers programming tools that allow outside developers to build entire apps on top of its chips.
Yum is taking advantage of the full stack, which is part of what makes this deal so unique. The company is not simply buying Nvidia chips or generic software—it’s building something new and proprietary with Nvidia’s help.
This could very well be a first for the restaurant industry. Most chains using voice AI today are buying it from a third-party vendor. Yum is building its system from the ground up, which gives it a number of advantages.
For instance, as Chief Digital and Technology Joe Park told the Wall Street Journal last week, building the new AI tools in-house will enable them to fit more easily into the rest of Yum’s tech stack. That means they can be scaled faster and more affordably across the company’s some 61,000 restaurants.
This fits in with Yum’s broader tech strategy, which has prioritized keeping things in-house. It has developed or acquired a variety of tech over the years, and it recently packaged all of it together into a platform called Byte by Yum.
Yum has also been conspicuously AI-first, airing plans to inject AI into just about every part of its operations. Its deal with Nvidia will eventually include computer vision in the drive-thru and restaurant analytics to assist managers.
Nvidia is one of the few AI companies in a position to keep up with this aggressive pace. Many AI providers are small and limited in their ability to scale quickly across large restaurant chains. That shouldn't be an issue for the giant Nvidia, whose customers include Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.
“We are thrilled to partner with a pioneering company like NVIDIA to help us accelerate this ambition,” Park said in a press release, the key word there being "accelerate."
All of that makes this deal a landmark moment in restaurants’ AI era. Just about every large chain has waded into AI in some capacity. But few have done so as deliberately as Yum. (Earlier this year, I predicted that the Louisville-based company would be the first in the restaurant industry to hire a chief AI officer, and I’m still feeling good about that.)
Now, just because Yum has a comprehensive AI strategy doesn’t guarantee it will work. But there’s no doubt that the vision is impressive, and the company now has a strong partner in Nvidia to help achieve it.
On another note, the deal also marks something of a full-circle moment for Nvidia. In a classic bit of Silicon Valley lore, the company was founded in a Denny’s, the diner chain where CEO Jensen Huang worked summers as a teenager and would continue to frequent as an adult.
Denny’s and Nvidia have become so intertwined that last week the chain launched a limited-time menu item in Huang’s honor. Denny’s Nvidia Breakfast Bytes feature sausage links meant to be wrapped in a pancake and dipped in maple syrup, which is apparently how Huang eats them.
(The multi-billionaire tech exec has also been known to wax on about Denny’s Super Bird turkey sandwich.)
Denny's Nvidia Breakfast Bytes. | Photo courtesy of Denny's
But Huang enjoyed more than just the food at Denny’s. His experience washing dishes and bussing tables there turned him into a lifelong fan of the restaurant industry.
“Start your first job in the restaurant business,” Huang was quoted as saying in a 2023 blog post on Nvidia’s website. “It teaches you humility, it teaches you hard work, it teaches you hospitality.”
Nearly 50 years after Huang first donned a Denny’s uniform and 30 years after he helped establish the company in a Denny's booth, Nvidia is poised to make another mark on restaurants.