Domino’s Gives Voice AI A Local Accent To Make Orders Feel Human

Domino’s is changing how its AI sounds by adding accents and natural tone, making it easier and more pleasant for customers to order pizza.

Domino’s is giving its AI a human touch, literally in the way it speaks. The pizza chain operated its voice AI system for phone orders for years, now it went a step further to develop its technology to simulate human-like communication with customers.

“If someone hears a really off-putting, unrelatable voice, they’re going to hang up,” said to Business Insider (BI) Lily Clifford, CEO of Rime Labs, the company behind the AI voice Domino’s uses.

ConverseNow, which supplies the AI assistant to Domino’s, once faced serious pushback. “There was one point where 50% of the people were just saying they just didn’t want to talk to it,” said Akshay Kayastha, ConverseNow’s engineering director, as reported by BI.

Rime’s natural-sounding voices have improved customer retention. According to Clifford after this improvement, nearly all customers remain on the line.

The technology operates for 80% of North American phone orders at Domino’s restaurants. The AI system in certain regions uses local speech patterns to create a more relatable experience for customers, such as using a Southern accent in Atlanta, and African-American Vernacular English.

“It should sound like someone who could work at Domino’s,” Clifford explained, as reported by BI.

The team didn’t just rely on voice actors. The team constructed a recording studio in San Francisco to capture genuine friend-to-friend conversations which they used to develop authentic AI voice samples.

The tech also helps with tone. “No one in real life speaks so cheerfully at a drive-thru,” Kayastha noted, as reported by BI.

Importantly, Clifford says this isn’t about replacing jobs. “If you’re at the restaurant making pizzas and wings, you do not want to answer that phone,” she said to BI.

However, contrary to what Cliggord is implying, for many people working in fast food isn’t a ion, a career, or a calling—it’s a necessity. Answering phones may seem like a small task, but it’s also a job. And quietly, AI is taking it. Whether that’s progress or a problem depends on where you’re standing.