Restaurant tech showcase signals more kiosks, AI ordering for Taco Bell

The next wave of Taco Bell labor changes may not come from a corporate memo at all, but from the restaurant tech tools on display in Chicago. A major 2026 restaurant showcase is set for May 16-19 and will center on AI, robotics, plant-based trends, and sustainable packaging, with automation vendors lining up self-service kiosks, smarter point-of-sale systems, digital signage, and computer vision tools built to speed orders and reduce manual bottlenecks.

For Taco Bell crews, the practical issue is who does what when the front counter gets thinner. The more the first-touch order moves to a screen or a voice system, the more crew members are pushed into fixing exceptions, troubleshooting kiosk errors, expediting tickets, and keeping the line moving when the software does not. Managers, in turn, get a different job: less pure headcount counting, more labor deployment by daypart, tech support, and training people to work around whatever the system misses.

That matters because Taco Bell has already gone farther than many fast-food chains in turning digital ordering into the core of the business. Yum! Brands said on July 31, 2024 that it was expanding Voice AI across Taco Bell drive-thrus in the United States, with the rollout already in more than 100 Taco Bell drive-thrus across 13 states and a target of hundreds of stores by the end of that year. Yum said the system was meant to improve back-of-house operations for team members and the ordering experience for customers.

The company’s digital bet has only grown since then. Yum reported more than $30 billion in annual digital sales in 2024, with more than half of system sales coming through digital channels. Taco Bell said in 2025 that it had reached $1 billion in operating profit in 2024, and that it planned to drive more innovation across menus, service, operations, and tech.

The kiosk rollout is already deep enough to change the rhythm of a shift. One 2024 industry report said Taco Bell had finished rolling out kiosks across its footprint, with around a third of sales moving through digital channels. It also said some locations now have six or seven kiosks, while one Taco Bell Cantina in Las Vegas has 10. That is not just a front-counter tweak. It is a staffing model built around customers doing more of the transaction themselves while crew members absorb the messy parts that software still cannot handle.

Taco Bell has long framed speed as the point, including drive-thru work aimed at service times of two minutes or less. The new hardware and software on display in Chicago suggest the company’s next phase will be less about whether digital ordering stays and more about how much of the shift it absorbs.