Hi Auto

At NRA 2026, operators didn't ask if AI order-taking works. They asked how it works at scale.

Scale in QSR is specific: different menus, different accents, different LTOs, different upsell strategies.

Two great days in Chicago with clients, partners, and industry leaders moving fast on what's next for the drive-thru.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and brought the hard questions.

Bring your hardest drive-thru question to NRA this weekend.

Parrish Chapman, our EVP of Sales, will be on the floor in Chicago Friday and Saturday.

Block time with him on site to talk drive-thru AI order taking at scale:
https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0vl84X0

Welcoming Parrish Chapman to Hi Auto today as our new Executive Vice President of Sales. 🎉

Chapman brings decades of enterprise technology, retail, and restaurant leadership to Hi Auto, with firsthand operational experience in the industry as a former Dairy Queen and Church’s Chicken franchisee and through earlier roles with Wendy’s corporate operations.

He'll lead our enterprise growth strategy as we continue to scale our AI Order Taker across QSR drive-thrus.

It's a great moment for the team. ~1,000 stores trust Hi Auto today, with 93%+ completion and 96% accuracy, and there's so much more ahead. We're grateful to have Parrish helping us build it.

Welcome to the team, Parrish. 💙

Read the full announcement:

Parrish Chapman Appointed Executive Vice President of Sales at Hi Auto Parrish Chapman Appointed Executive Vice President of Sales, bringing leadership from Olo, GRUBBRR, Samsung, and Panasonic plus operator roots as a Dairy Queen franchisee.

We're live at RLC. Booth #129 💙
The demo is running. Come place an order and hear our AI Order Taker handle it in real time.
Same system running across ~1,000 QSR drive-thrus today for Bojangles, Popeyes UK, Burger King NZ, and Checkers & Rally's.

The drive-thru is where QSRs make 70% of their sales. It's also their biggest labor problem, with wages climbing and turnover in some stores hitting 300%.

Roy joined Jane King at the New York Stock Exchange to talk about what it takes to make AI work in the drive-thru, and what it means for operators.

He walks through:

- The ROI restaurant operator achieve with Hi Auto
- Why LLMs alone can't hit the accuracy bar QSRs need
- What it takes to make voice AI hold up at scale

Watch the full interview:

Hi Auto CEO Roy Baharav at the NYSE | How AI Is Transforming Drive-Thrus Hi Auto CEO Roy Baharav joins Jane King at the NYSE to discuss how AI-powered order-taking is transforming drive-thrus across 1,000+ locations.

Drive-thru AI has focused on one question for years: can AI take an order? We proved it can. 93%+ completion AND 96% accuracy across ~1,000 stores.

But there's a part of the drive-thru nobody has been watching: the pickup window.

That's where a friendly greeting turns a transaction into a return visit. Where order accuracy is confirmed or corrected. Where up to 70% of QSR revenue passes through every day.

And until now, operators had no way to see what was happening there.
Introducing Window Intelligence, a new capability that brings AI-powered analysis to the pickup window for the first time.

Because our AI already knows what each guest ordered, it arrives at the window with full context. That's what makes it possible to detect a void that doesn't match a conversation, measure service quality in real time, and trace an order correction back to its source.

What operators get: → Friendliness scoring at the window → Real-time fraud detection → Window time analysis by stage → Order accuracy measurement before the guest drives away

The speaker has been digitized. Now the window is too.

Read the full story 👉

Hi Auto Launches Window Intelligence for QSR Drive-Thrus Hi Auto's Window Intelligence brings AI analysis to the drive-thru pickup window, giving QSR operators real-time visibility into every guest interaction.

5 days until RLC.

Here's what changes when AI handles order taking across ~1,000 drive-thrus:
3-8 labor hours saved per store, per day.
~1.5% lift in average ticket size.
100% upsell offer rate, compared to ~20% with humans.
17% decrease in employee turnover.

This is what operators are seeing after running Hi Auto at scale.

Come see it in action. Booth #129. April 19-22. Phoenix. We're also sharing something new at the show - more on that this week.

There's a difference between reading about AI order taking and hearing it handle a real order.

The numbers tell part of the story. 93%+ completion, 96% accuracy, ~1,000 stores, 100M orders/year. But when you actually hear the AI take a complex order, handle a substitution, and upsell a combo without missing a beat, it clicks differently.

Booth #129. April 19-22. Phoenix.
Come hear it in action 💙

We're also announcing something new at RLC. Details coming next week.

Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken is making AI ordering available to every franchisee in its system.

But first, they did the groundwork.

Lee's unified their entire POS system and menu database across the brand. They deployed Hi Auto's AI Order Taker in company-owned stores first. They built operational knowledge. Then, only then, they opened it up to franchisees.

Not a mandate. An option, backed by proof.

The results across Lee's first 30 locations: 95%+ order completion and 97% accuracy. Better labor efficiency, shorter lines, and happier teams.

"Our operators are the backbone of Lee's, and it's our job to give them every advantage we can," said Ryan Weaver, CEO of Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken.

We're proud to power Lee's drive-thrus and to partner with a brand that does the hard work to set its franchisees up for success.

Read the full story 👉 https://hi.auto/company/newsroom/lees-famous-recipe-chicken-ai-powered-drive-thru-ordering/

Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken Invests in Franchisee Success with AI-Powered Drive-Thru Ordering Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken rolls out AI drive-thru ordering to all franchisees after strong results across 30 locations.

Your best employee upsells maybe 20% of the time.

Our AI does it 100% of the time. Every order. Every shift. Every store.
Across ~1,000 drive-thrus and 100M orders/year, that adds up to ~1.5% lift in average ticket size, roughly $15K-$20K per store, per year. On top of 3-8 labor hours saved per store, per day.

At RLC, you can hear exactly how it sounds when the AI takes a real order, handles modifications, and upsells naturally. Same system running today for Bojangles, Popeyes UK, Burger King NZ, and Checkers & Rally's.

Booth #129. April 19-22. Phoenix 💙

We're also bringing something to RLC that we haven't shared publicly yet. More soon.