Latest news with #MichaelChorey
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Michael Chorey, Founder of Wendy's FreshAi, to Join Presto as Co-Founder and President of Presto IQ
Presto launches new dynamic data unit and adds one of the QSR industry's most experienced AI visionaries to its market-leading Voice AI platform SAN CARLOS, Calif., August 13, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Presto, the company that pioneered drive-thru Voice AI, today announced that Michael Chorey, the founder of Wendy's FreshAi, has joined the company to build Presto IQ, the first AI-native dynamic data offering for the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry. In this role, Chorey will work with Presto to grow its drive-thru Voice AI platform and lead the development of the new Presto IQ business unit. Chorey is widely recognized for pioneering AI experiences that are both operationally sound and emotionally intelligent. Presto IQ will integrate dynamic data sources, enabling restaurants and other QSR industry members to personalize their offerings to serve the needs of customers, crew, and operators in real time. "I'm thrilled to become a Prestonian at such an exciting time for both the industry and the company. I've known the Presto team for a long time and admire their pioneering vision as well as their understanding of the restaurant industry," said Chorey, co-founder and President of Presto IQ. "I have deep experience conceptualizing and bringing AI to life in an enterprise restaurant setting, but I have always believed personalization is the key to unlocking even more value for all stakeholders," said Chorey. "I build for the parent in the drive-thru, the crew member on their first shift, and the operator trying to make a thousand decisions. The Presto team is the only one that shares this vision, and I'm excited to bring Presto IQ to market." Chorey's move marks a defining moment in the industry's shift toward a responsive platform like Presto that earns trust by honoring industry context, not just automating transactions. "In order to deliver AI to restaurants, you need deep restaurant industry experience, and Mike is one of the few leaders in the QSR space who understands the big picture and also how to operationalize it at the ground level," said Krishna Gupta, co-founder of Presto. "Through his work with Wendy's, Mike adds to the 100+ years of restaurant experience of our leadership team and is a major asset for our company. "Having spent more than a decade in Voice AI, I'm excited about the opportunity we have today to take the recent advances in AI, marry them with our market leadership, and bring Presto IQ to all industry players as a first-of-its-kind offering." About Presto Phoenix, Inc. Presto is the Voice AI market leader for restaurant drive-thrus. Presto's products increase revenue, decrease labor costs, improve staff productivity, and standardize/enhance the guest experience. Presto is expanding nationwide with some of the most recognized quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands in the United States. Based in Silicon Valley, Presto is backed by Voice AI specialist Remus Capital and aims to deliver a full suite of Vertical AI solutions for restaurant chains to enable end-to-end automation. View source version on Contacts Investors: investor@ Media: prestopr@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Michael Chorey, Founder of Wendy's FreshAi, to Join Presto as Co-Founder and President of Presto IQ
SAN CARLOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 13, 2025-- Presto, the company that pioneered drive-thru Voice AI, today announced that Michael Chorey, the founder of Wendy's FreshAi, has joined the company to build Presto IQ, the first AI-native dynamic data offering for the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: Michael Chorey In this role, Chorey will work with Presto to grow its drive-thru Voice AI platform and lead the development of the new Presto IQ business unit. Chorey is widely recognized for pioneering AI experiences that are both operationally sound and emotionally intelligent. Presto IQ will integrate dynamic data sources, enabling restaurants and other QSR industry members to personalize their offerings to serve the needs of customers, crew, and operators in real time. 'I'm thrilled to become a Prestonian at such an exciting time for both the industry and the company. I've known the Presto team for a long time and admire their pioneering vision as well as their understanding of the restaurant industry,' said Chorey, co-founder and President of Presto IQ. 'I have deep experience conceptualizing and bringing AI to life in an enterprise restaurant setting, but I have always believed personalization is the key to unlocking even more value for all stakeholders,' said Chorey. 'I build for the parent in the drive-thru, the crew member on their first shift, and the operator trying to make a thousand decisions. The Presto team is the only one that shares this vision, and I'm excited to bring Presto IQ to market.' Chorey's move marks a defining moment in the industry's shift toward a responsive platform like Presto that earns trust by honoring industry context, not just automating transactions. 'In order to deliver AI to restaurants, you need deep restaurant industry experience, and Mike is one of the few leaders in the QSR space who understands the big picture and also how to operationalize it at the ground level,' said Krishna Gupta, co-founder of Presto. 'Through his work with Wendy's, Mike adds to the 100+ years of restaurant experience of our leadership team and is a major asset for our company. 'Having spent more than a decade in Voice AI, I'm excited about the opportunity we have today to take the recent advances in AI, marry them with our market leadership, and bring Presto IQ to all industry players as a first-of-its-kind offering.' About Presto Phoenix, Inc. Presto is the Voice AI market leader for restaurant drive-thrus. Presto's products increase revenue, decrease labor costs, improve staff productivity, and standardize/enhance the guest experience. Presto is expanding nationwide with some of the most recognized quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands in the United States. Based in Silicon Valley, Presto is backed by Voice AI specialist Remus Capital and aims to deliver a full suite of Vertical AI solutions for restaurant chains to enable end-to-end automation. View source version on CONTACT: Investors:[email protected] Media:[email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA CALIFORNIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: RESTAURANT/BAR RETAIL TECHNOLOGY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE SOURCE: Presto Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 08/13/2025 06:06 AM/DISC: 08/13/2025 06:05 AM
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Wendy's AI guru joins Presto — and he's betting drive-thrus may never be the same
If you ask Michael Chorey, " Can AI take your order?" The answer is a resounding "yes." The founder and chief inventor of Wendy's FreshAI has departed from the burger chain and joined AI automation provider Presto as cofounder and president of its new division, Presto IQ. Over the last three years, Chorey helped Wendy's build an AI that he says can take customer orders faster and more efficiently than a worker wearing a headset. Now, he's betting the same tech will reshape the entire fast-food industry, one drive-thru at a time. The move marks a major shift for Chorey, who's stepping out of the corporate kitchen and into the broader world of tech providers with a plan to personalize — and partially automate — interactions between restaurants, their workers, and their customers. It's also a signal that the fast-food segment is rethinking its approach to AI. "This unlocks the future of what hospitality means, starting in the drive-thru," Chorey told Business Insider. Chorey spent three of his five years at Wendy's working to bring FreshAI to life. By the time he left the company in early August, he said the chain, which started testing the AI voice assistant in 2023, had implemented AI ordering at 300 drive-thru sites and planned to roll out the tech at as many as 600 locations by year's end. Representatives for Wendy's did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Business Insider previously reported that Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner told investors in February that the FreshAI system, created with Google Cloud,"gives customers the opportunity to build their orders." Despite early customer concerns about ease of use and accuracy, Tanner said he personally tests the technology a few times a week at a Wendy's location near the company's headquarters, adding that FreshAI "understands what to ask for, and the accuracy definitely is improving." The AI rollout race at a drive-thru near you Wendy's isn't the only chain that has rolled out AI-powered ordering assistants in recent years, but it is among the furthest along in implementing the technology. In 2021, McDonald's began testing an AI ordering system it created in collaboration with IBM, but rolled it back after videos showing flaws in the tech went viral in 2023, and ended the program in June 2024, Business Insider previously reported. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported McDonald's had struck a new deal, this time with Google, to revisit how to integrate AI across its global portfolio. Yum Brands, the parent company of chains including KFC and Pizza Hut, announced last July that it would expand the use of its AI-powered drive-thru assistant to hundreds of Taco Bell locations by year's end, in addition to five KFC locations in Australia, Business Insider reported. Presto's technology is already being tested at major chains like Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, both owned by CKE Restaurants, as well as Wienerschnitzel and Yoshinoya. Representatives for the chains did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. Automated service with a smile Chorey said the main benefit — and challenge — of his work with Presto is expanding the technology to work seamlessly for each of the different brands and their customers. "If you listen to orders during lunchtime versus orders in the middle of the day, the way the human crew members talk to the customer changes, the way customers talk to the human crew member changes, and that changes even more with each brand," Chorey said. "Effective AI platforms are able to adapt, just like our human crew members, to create a very consistent experience, every time you come to a restaurant." As AI becomes more mainstream in the fast food sector, the Presto team knows the tech will disrupt the workers on the other end of the drive-thru box. Krishna Gupta, the cofounder and co-CEO of Presto, told Business Insider he expects there to be no human operators taking orders at drive-thrus within the next three years. Still, he added, "nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'I want to take orders all day.'" "So now you can go to that person and say, instead of doing that monotonous, repetitive, boring work, you can actually create the food and make orders and serve people with a smile," Gupta said. "And that's my hope for AI tech broadly, is that it enables all of humanity to do that, and serve the higher purpose of our lives." For the brands considering implementing the technology, Gupta and Chorey said it's less a matter of "if" and more a matter of "when" they need to get on board, given the continuously evolving needs of the dining industry. " Fast food is fast, and it's only going to get faster — this is a very competitive landscape," Chorey said. "Brands need to be able to make decisions quickly; they need to be able to adapt on the fly, whether it's an operator at the restaurant or leadership within a broader brand, and these voice AI agents give them that ability." The drive-thru lanes were just the beginning. With AI agents already capable of upselling your order of french fries, the next evolution of fast food is smart, scalable — and increasingly inhuman.
