Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill, has announced a groundbreaking partnership with Nvidia to accelerate the development of innovative AI technologies for its restaurants worldwide. This collaboration marks Nvidia's first foray into the restaurant industry and aims to integrate AI at an unprecedented scale.
The partnership has already yielded significant results, with Yum! Brands deploying Nvidia AI-powered voice AI agents within three months, and piloting multiple AI solutions in select Taco Bell and Pizza Hut locations in the United States. Following a successful pilot, a broader rollout targeting 500 restaurants across Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, and Habit Burger is planned for the second quarter of this year.
The AI solutions will focus on three key areas across Yum! Brands: voice automated order-taking AI agents, computer vision enhanced operations, and accelerated restaurant intelligence. These applications are expected to optimize drive-thru efficiency, enhance back-of-house labor management, and provide personalized action plans for restaurant managers based on best practices from top-performing locations.
The partnership aims to optimize inference costs at scale and enable AI to tackle increasingly complex tasks, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and customer engagement. Yum! Brands' digital and technology strategy is focused on better serving its franchisees, providing them with better, faster, cheaper, and safer technology while delighting consumers and maximizing shareholder returns.
Looking ahead, Yum! Brands plans to expand AI to help team members manage complex tasks, including AI agents that plan, reason, and act to assist across restaurants. The company also aims to integrate more advanced AI models, such as large language models, into its operations and pave the way for innovative applications, including sentiment analysis and personalized customer interactions.
The technology will be integrated into "byte by Yum!," a proprietary AI-driven SaaS platform that consolidates essential restaurant systems. The partnership with Nvidia strengthens Yum! Brands' leadership in restaurant technology and aims to position the company as a leader in integrating technology into every touchpoint across every restaurant around the world.
Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, and its subsidiaries franchise or operate a system of over 61,000 restaurants in more than 155 countries and territories under the company’s concepts – KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill.
In 2024, Yum! Brands was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index North America, Newsweek’s list of America’s most responsible companies, USA Today’s America’s climate leaders, and 3BL’s list of 100 best corporate citizens. In 2025, the company was recognized among Time magazine’s list of best companies for future leaders and led Entrepreneur's top global franchises 2024 list.
The terms of the strategic partnership between Yum! Brands and Nvidia are subject to mutually agreeable definitive agreements. Today the company's shares have moved 0.1% to a price of $157.3. For the full picture, make sure to review Yum! Brands's 8-K report.
