Ordering In From a Restaurant? You Could Soon Be Talking to AI From DoorDash

DoorDash announced it’s developing a new AI-powered voice ordering system on Tuesday that will allow customers to place phone orders by calling a restaurant and talking to an AI instead of a person, according to a press release. 

The new system will be equipped with “DoorDash’s extensive menu knowledge” to provide customers with “curated recommendations to complement their meal, increasing overall ticket sizes by targeted upselling,” the press release stated. “During peak times at restaurants, AI will answer calls allowing employees to focus on providing warm hospitality to in-store customers as opposed to worrying about answering phone lines.” 

The system will also be partnered with “best-in-class live agents” that customers can request to speak to instead. A DoorDash spokesperson said that customers will be able to call restaurants that use the AI service to place a pickup or delivery order, and choose to be escalated to the store for additional support should they not wish to speak with the AI. 

As AI-powered systems have proliferated, software users have become increasingly concerned about their biometric information being used to train these systems. Recently, Zoom introduced AI tools to its software and sparked an outrage after users noticed its terms of service included using "customer content" for machine learning purposes. The company told Motherboard at the time that the feature was opt-in and updated its privacy policy to reflect that. 

DoorDash’s AI system will be extended as a “white-label solution” to select restaurants to help with their phone order demand, meaning that it will not be DoorDash-branded, so customers cannot choose in advance whether they wish to interact with it or not. When contacted for comment, a DoorDash spokesperson did not explain whether customers will be notified that they are speaking with an AI, or if the system will use customers' voices to train machine learning algorithms.

DoorDash’s current privacy policy, updated in July,  states that the company may collect and process personal information about its users, which includes “facial recognition, voiceprint, or other similar data that may be considered biometric data.” 

Motherboard reached out to DoorDash to ask whether voice calls with the new AI system will be collected, stored, or used to train the AI. A spokesperson responded to our request, but did not answer this question. A follow-up did not receive an immediate response. 

The spokesperson told Motherboard that DoorDash has invested in robust security measures to protect the personal information customers may provide during the ordering process, and that it remains committed to keeping data security and privacy as a top priority as it continues to develop transparent solutions leveraging AI.