{"id":112620,"date":"2020-02-04T11:53:36","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T16:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.borndigital.com\/?p=112620"},"modified":"2020-02-04T17:55:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T22:55:01","slug":"kfc-uses-ai-to-impersonate-colonel-sanders-for-voice-orders","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/kfc-uses-ai-to-impersonate-colonel-sanders-for-voice-orders","title":{"rendered":"KFC Uses AI to Impersonate Colonel Sanders for Voice Orders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Need to Know<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Customers can now order fried chicken directly from Colonel Sanders himself, thanks to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) team that recreated the iconic voice of Colonel Sanders.<\/li><li>KFC is the first global QSR brand to use this variation of text-to-speech technology to create a unique ordering experience.<\/li><li>KFC is the world\u2019s third-biggest and QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants) and one of the most digitally forward, with more than 22,000 stores in almost 140 countries, and $26 billion in sales per year.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Analysis<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reinventing fried chicken in the digital age requires an overhaul, but KFC is ready. All a customer needs to do is ask, and the Colonel will deliver.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>KFC Canada partnered with Amazon Web Services to transform Amazon Polly, an AI text-to-speech service that uses advanced deep learning technologies, into the iconic voice of KFC&#8217;s Founder, Colonel Harland Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAlexa, ask KFC Canada to reorder\u201d is the start of new conversations customers can have to reorder favorites from local KFC locations. This comes on the heels of a <em>Chicken Talk<\/em> skill that was launched in 2017 (which starts with \u201cAlexa, talk chicken to me\u201d) that lets customers play chicken trivia games and have poultry-filled conversations with the Colonel.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Matt Wood, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, AWS said &#8220;we extended Amazon Polly\u2026 to incorporate a spicy Southern accent and speech patterns that are consistent with the world-famous persona of Colonel Sanders.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>KFC\u2019s global chief digital officer, Ryan Ostrom, says that the brand opens a restaurant every six hours. KFC is behind only McDonald\u2019s and Starbucks in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/273057\/value-of-the-most-valuable-fast-food-brands-worldwide\/\">global brand value<\/a> and has made a concerted effort to reinvent the customer experience and make it as convenient as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBecause of our sheer size, we will have more kiosks than terminals at Bank of America. We will be the largest delivery player\u2014greater than any pizza company in the world\u2014and we will have more click-and-collect points than Walmart, Kroger, Target and Costco combined,\u201d said Ostrom. \u201cIt is going to make us one of the largest omnichannel brands in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>KFC&#8217;s digital transformation has been four years in the making and includes digital fencing to help \u201cown the point of hunger\u201d, buying <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2018\/01\/12\/kfc-canada-wants-you-to-buy-chicken-with-bitcoin\">buckets of fried chicken with bitcoin<\/a>, and using Google glass to train more remote employees and ensure quality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Need to Know Customers can now order fried chicken directly from Colonel Sanders himself, thanks to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) team that recreated the iconic voice of Colonel Sanders. KFC is the first global QSR brand to use this variation of text-to-speech technology to create a unique ordering experience. KFC is the world\u2019s third-biggest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76315,"featured_media":112629,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3422,13,3414],"tags":[3478],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-112620","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-News","category-technology-News","tag-kfc"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/112620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/112620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/112629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112620"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=112620"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=112620"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=112620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}