Starbucks says roughly half of its customers use the drive-thru, where the company is exploring a “fast pass” for people who use its app. (Photo by Hamza Inayat on Unsplash )
Starbucks’ idea to recognize regulars at the drive-thru is getting plenty of attention , but the actual implementation might not be as sci-fi as some of the headlines suggested.
CEO Brian Niccol said on the company’s earnings call last week that Starbucks is “exploring experiences that recognize participating customers as they arrive, present personalized digital menus, and make payment more effortless.”
He didn’t say how that would work, and some reports quickly jumped to the idea that facial recognition could be coming to Starbucks, with one headline declaring that the company wants AI to know your face .
Niccol’s own description of the idea, in an interview the next morning, centered on the Starbucks app: “When you pull up to the drive-thru, if you’re in our app, it will recognize you,” he told Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi on “Sozzi Unleashed.” “It’ll show the order that you’ve placed historically or the last time you ordered.”
From there, he said, “the barista will be like, ‘Brian, is it the usual?’ You’ll be like, ‘Yes, great. It’s paid.’ Now you’re off to the window to pick up your drink, and out you go.”
Niccol said it will be “the fastest drive-thru experience you can have,” adding, “We haven’t named it yet, but I feel like this is going to be a fast pass.” He acknowledged that it’s “a ways away.”
One way an app could recognize a customer without cameras is geofencing, in which the app uses a phone’s location to detect when a customer enters a zone around the store, as some restaurant chains already do for curbside pickup. Another is a small Bluetooth transmitter at the order board that detects a phone when the car pulls up.
Starbucks hasn’t said publicly how customers would be identified or where the idea would be tested.
Responding to an inquiry from GeekWire, Starbucks said Niccol was speaking in the context of the company’s broader effort to make the drive-thru faster, more convenient and more personal, while preserving the interaction between baristas and customers.
“We’re early in this work, and we’ll test, learn, and scale what works,” Niccol said on the call.
Roughly half of Starbucks customers use the drive-thru, he said. Speed matters as Starbucks competes with drive-thru-focused chains such as Dutch Bros and 7 Brew, as Yahoo Finance noted .
Before any fast pass, Starbucks plans to begin testing “background AI models” in its current fiscal year, which began in late September, to help baristas enter orders more accurately and efficiently. The idea builds on a pilot that GeekWire reported on earlier this year , which listens as a customer orders and enters the items into the register automatically.
That approach keeps a person at the speaker, unlike chains that have tried letting AI take the order. McDonald’s ended its AI drive-thru ordering test with IBM in 2024, while Wendy’s has expanded AI ordering nationwide at its drive-thrus using Google Cloud technology.
Starbucks has had its own setbacks with AI in stores. In May, the company retired an AI-powered inventory counting tool built with Redmond, Wash.-based startup NomadGo, just nine months after unveiling it, after baristas reported miscounts and other glitches, as GeekWire reported in July .
“When it fell short, we listened to feedback and changed course,” Starbucks said at the time.
The drive-thru work is part of a broader tech push. Niccol said on the call that the current fiscal year will be “a major tech modernization year,” with new staffing, scheduling and point-of-sale systems rolling out to stores.
The company also plans to begin building delivery directly into the Starbucks app early next year, use AI to improve search in the app and eventually support ordering through AI assistants and from customers’ cars.
The push comes as Starbucks’ business picks up, with U.S. same-store sales up 7.7% in the quarter ended Sept. 27.
