Five Guys AI voice assistant processes 184,000 phone orders and upsells

At a Glance:

• Mission: Answer every call during peak hours to recapture lost revenue lost from missed calls
• Solution: An AI voice assistant that answers 100% of calls and takes orders by phone
• Results:
  
  • 184,000+ orders processed by phone in the first year
  • 92% AI phone order completion
  • 5% upsell conversion rate, beating the industry average of 3% or less
• What’s Next: Expand AI across more locations with Spanish-language ordering

The mission: turn the phone into a revenue channel

Phones still ring often in a quick-service restaurant, and every call is a customer ready to order. 

During the lunch or dinner rush, those calls compete with a line at the counter, fries in the basket, and a kitchen running at maximum capacity. When staff can't reach the phone, the order (and the revenue) goes elsewhere. At the same time, inconsistent upselling leaves more on the table.

Five Guys has served hand-crafted burgers and fries since 1986. Today, the chain serves more than 165 million burgers a year across 1,700 international locations. At that scale, rising costs and staffing constraints made the phone a hard channel to consistently staff and operate at full potential. 

Five Guys saw the phone not as a cost to manage, but as a revenue opportunity. The goal was to answer every call, speed up ordering, and upsell consistently without pulling people off the line. Their answer was AI.

The solution: an AI voice assistant that answers every call

Five Guys partnered with SoundHound AI to deploy an AI voice assistant to take on the phones.

The assistant answers 100% of calls, acting as an always-on staff member taking orders directly from customers on its own.

The Five Guys AI voice assistant helps with:

• Answering 100% of inbound calls
• Taking and delivering phone orders to the kitchen
• Consistent upselling on every order
• Spanish-language ordering

The result is a call experience that holds up under a rush: every call answered, zero hold times, and a faster average ordering time for the restaurant. The assistant also upsells on every order, and does it consistently — something even well-staffed phones struggle to match shift after shift.

The results: 184,000 orders and upsells

Since 2025, Five Guys has processed more than 184,000 orders through the AI voice assistant. In 2025, the assistant completed 92% of the phone orders it took.

[[block:stats]]
92% | AI phone order completion in 2025.
5% | upsell conversion rate, versus an industry average of 3% or less.
500,000+ | minutes of talk time eliminated from Five Guys' phones since 2025.
[[/block]]

That 5% upsell rate runs well ahead of the industry norm of 3% or less, turning routine calls into incremental revenue. And by taking 500,000 minutes of phone time off employees' plates, the assistant gives staff their attention back for the work that needs a person — the grill, the counter, the guest standing in front of them.

Beyond the metrics alone, Five Guys realized 3 long-term payoffs:

• More incremental revenue. Every answered call and a 5% upsell rate turn the phone into a channel that earns its keep.
• Deeper customer loyalty. Zero hold times and a fast, consistent ordering experience keep customers coming back.
• Higher employee morale. With 500,000 minutes of phone time off their plates, staff focus on the work that needs a person.

"At Five Guys, quality is everything. Working with SoundHound AI has allowed our franchisees to process orders more efficiently, providing welcome support to our people in particularly busy peak hours. The result is a fast, consistent ordering experience which helps deepen loyalty and brand appreciation."
‍
MJ Worsham
Director, Restaurant Technology, Five Guys

What's next: bringing voice-native AI to more locations

More than 288 locations have adopted SoundHound’s voice AI assistant to date, and that footprint keeps growing. It now takes orders in Spanish, widening the channel to more customers. Five Guys continues to expand the program from here.

Interested in starting your own AI journey with SoundHound AI?

Talk to a SoundHound AI expert and see what’s possible with an enterprise AI agent platform.

Talk to an expert