SSoundHound AI for Restaurants

SoundHound AI says its voice AI now runs in more than 15,000 restaurant locations, and Casey’s alone uses its ordering agents across more than 2,600 stores. Few restaurant phone agents operate at that scale. SoundHound’s restaurant products answer calls, take phone and drive-thru orders, process payment through the point of sale and send tickets to the kitchen, with staff only stepping in for escalations.

It is best for chains and large franchise groups that want one vendor for phone, drive-thru and newer channels such as in-car ordering, and that run Square, Toast, Oracle or Olo. Every product is priced by quote, and setup runs through SoundHound’s sales team. We rate it 7.9/10 on our scale. We have not used SoundHound’s restaurant products; this review is based on SoundHound’s product page, press releases and trade coverage.

Press-Release Milestones From a Public Company

As a public company, SoundHound announces restaurant milestones and customer deals through press releases, which makes its traction easier to trace than most rivals’.

The scale numbers matter because voice ordering gets better with exposure to accents, menus and peak-hour noise. A vendor that has processed more than 100 million restaurant interactions and runs in thousands of chain stores has seen more edge cases than a startup piloting in a few dozen. The Casey’s renewal is the strongest signal: a chain with more than 2,600 stores renewed and expanded after running the product at volume.

Acquisitions also explain the product’s breadth. SYNQ3 brought restaurant phone ordering volume and Amelia brought enterprise conversational AI, which is why SoundHound now pitches IT, guest relations and catering agents next to ordering. For a buyer, that breadth is most useful when you need it, so a 20-store brand can ask to scope the contract to the products it plans to use.

One Voice Stack, Several Separately Sold Products

SoundHound sells several restaurant products on one voice AI stack: speech recognition, language understanding, text-to-speech and generative AI for open questions. They can be bought separately.

Smart Answering

Smart Answering picks up every call, around the clock, and handles many calls at once so nobody hears a busy signal. It answers greetings, hours, menu, location, wait times, delivery, policies and promotions, can send reservation links by SMS, and forwards selected calls to staff. Restaurants add their own questions and answers on topics such as parking, accessibility or pricing. It needs no POS integration, so it works for any restaurant.

Smart Ordering

Smart Ordering imports the full menu and takes carryout, curbside and delivery orders by phone, SMS or in-app voice through a single integration. It suggests add-ons, processes payment through the POS, offers quick reorders for repeat guests, connects to loyalty systems and answers custom FAQs. SoundHound lists Square, Toast, Oracle and Olo as supported POS systems, with more planned.

Dynamic Drive-Thru

The drive-thru product combines voice with visual and touch screens. The February 2025 release added the Polaris speech model, which is multilingual, fully autonomous ordering with backup support for escalations, an upsell on every order, Smart Lane pre-ordering by call, text or scan before guests reach the window, and real-time analytics.

Employee Assist, In-Car Ordering and OASYS

Employee Assist answers staff questions about ingredients, allergens, procedures and training through a headset or tablet. Voice Commerce lets drivers find a restaurant, order and pay through their car’s voice assistant. OASYS, launched in May 2026, is SoundHound’s system for building, orchestrating, evaluating and improving conversational agents across phones, web chat, text, kiosks, social media, TVs and cars; at the 2026 National Restaurant Association Show it was shown handling guest and IT service tasks such as ticket creation and resolution.

Call Forwarding and a Sales-Led Start

• Contact sales: pricing and any custom integration are handled by a SoundHound representative.
• Keep your number: set up call forwarding through your phone provider to the SoundHound assistant.
• Import the menu: Smart Ordering pulls the full menu from your POS; Smart Answering takes custom questions and answers.
• Customize the voice: set greetings, goodbyes and the rules for which calls go to staff.
• Roll out: large brands such as Red Lobster and Casey’s trained the agent on their full menu before deploying it across all locations.

Forwarded Calls, Escalations and Menu Upkeep

Staff handle forwarded calls, guests who ask for a person, and escalations from the drive-thru. Someone also has to keep the menu, custom answers and promotions current, and review analytics to catch problems such as orders that stall on a particular item.

Every SoundHound Restaurant Product Sold by Quote

SoundHound does not publish prices for its restaurant products. The table reflects how each product is sold.

What a 30-Store Chain Needs the Agents to Deliver

Without published prices, the question is what the agents need to deliver to pay for themselves. These scenarios use our own illustrative assumptions, not SoundHound figures.

• A 30-store fast-casual chain: if each store misses 15 calls on a busy evening and a third of them were orders averaging $25, that is about $125 of lost sales per store per evening. Across 30 stores and 20 busy evenings a month, it is $75,000 a month in orders an always-on agent could recover, before any upsell effect.
• A single franchisee with 5 stores: the same math gives $12,500 a month. That is enough to justify a contract, but a franchisee should check whether the brand already has a SoundHound deal, since pricing at chain level is likely to be better.
• A drive-thru brand: upsell value depends on your current attach rate. SoundHound’s release cites a traditional upsell rate of 42% from a Bernstein report; measure your own before and after a pilot rather than assuming that figure.

To compare quotes fairly, convert every offer into a cost per store per month and a cost per completed order at your current call volume. A per-order fee looks cheap at a quiet store and expensive at a busy one, while a flat per-store fee does the opposite. Ask SoundHound and any rival to price the same three test stores so the numbers line up, and to state how price changes if you later add drive-thru, text or kiosk ordering.

Costs to ask about: POS integration and custom work, drive-thru hardware, per-location versus per-order fees, payment processing, and what happens to price when you add channels such as text or kiosk.

SoundHound AI for Restaurants Compared With ConverseNow, Loman AI, Slang AI and Yelp Host

The restaurant voice market splits between enterprise ordering platforms and lighter phone assistants with monthly prices.

SoundHound’s edge is breadth: few rivals cover phone, drive-thru, kiosk and in-car ordering with native Square, Toast, Oracle and Olo support. ConverseNow is its closest like-for-like rival. Independents get more certainty from Loman or Yelp Host, which publish monthly prices, and full-service restaurants that live on reservations may prefer Slang. See our restaurant agents and voice agents pages for more.

Chains With Hundreds of Stores on Square, Toast or Olo

• Chains with hundreds of stores: SoundHound runs at Casey’s across more than 2,600 stores and at all Red Lobster locations.
• Brands on Square, Toast, Oracle or Olo: Smart Ordering sends orders and payments straight into these systems.
• Drive-thru operators: Dynamic Drive-Thru adds Smart Lane pre-ordering and an upsell on every order.
• Brands planning new channels: in-car, TV and kiosk ordering are already part of the catalog.
• Operators who want staff support too: Employee Assist answers allergen and procedure questions for crew members.

Single Restaurants and Reservation-Led Fine Dining

• Single restaurants on a budget: SoundHound’s sales-led process is built around chains; Yelp Host or Loman AI publish monthly prices.
• Reservation-led fine dining: SoundHound’s restaurant products focus on ordering and information; a host-style agent such as Slang AI fits table bookings better.
• Restaurants on unsupported POS systems that need ordering: Smart Ordering requires a supported POS or custom integration work.
• Teams that want to self-serve: SoundHound does not yet offer self-serve signup or a published trial.

Location Counts That Cover More Than One Product

• Self-reported scale: the location counts and interaction totals come from SoundHound’s own announcements, and its location figure covers all its voice and conversational AI in restaurants, not one product.
• Several separate products: Smart Answering, Smart Ordering, Dynamic Drive-Thru, Employee Assist, Voice Commerce and OASYS are separate offers. Get a written list of what your contract covers.
• POS dependency: Smart Ordering relies on the POS link to place orders, so ask about monitoring and fallbacks.
• Upsell tuning: an upsell on every order can raise tickets, and some regulars may prefer fewer prompts; listen to calls during the pilot.
• Competitive market: trade coverage lists Presto, ConverseNow, Kea, Hi Auto, PolyAI and Vox AI as rivals, so get at least one competing quote.

OASYS and SoundHound’s 2026 Restaurant Show Lineup

• June 2026: Restaurant Technology News reported on SoundHound’s restaurant lineup at the National Restaurant Association Show, including the OASYS agent system launched in May 2026 and a claim of more than 15,000 locations.
• April 2026: Casey’s renewed and expanded its SoundHound partnership across more than 2,600 stores, after more than 21 million guest interactions.
• September 2025: Red Lobster rolled out a SoundHound AI phone ordering agent across all of its locations, sending orders straight to each restaurant’s POS.
• February 2025: SoundHound announced its next-generation restaurant platform, adding call, text, scan and in-car ordering to Dynamic Drive-Thru.

Shortlist Material for Chains Wanting Full Order Taking

For a chain, yes, it belongs on the shortlist. SoundHound’s agents do the whole job of taking an order: answering, building the basket, upselling, taking payment and sending the ticket to the kitchen, on the phone and at the drive-thru. The Casey’s renewal across more than 2,600 stores and the Red Lobster rollout show large brands trusting it at full scale.

It scores 7.9/10 on our scale because these strengths sit next to quote-only pricing and a sales-led setup, which our pricing and ease scores reflect. Chains with a procurement team are used to that process, while independents may prefer a published price. Run a pilot with clear targets for answer rate, order accuracy and ticket size, and compare at least one rival quote before committing.

What Chain Operators Check Before a SoundHound Rollout

How Much Does SoundHound Charge Restaurants?

SoundHound does not publish restaurant pricing. Smart Answering, Smart Ordering, Dynamic Drive-Thru and custom integrations are all quoted by a sales representative, so ask whether fees are per location, per call or per order.

Which POS Systems Work With SoundHound Smart Ordering?

SoundHound lists Square, Toast, Oracle and Olo, with more planned. Restaurants on other systems can still use Smart Answering, which needs no integration, or discuss custom integration with sales.

Can SoundHound Take Payments Over the Phone?

Yes. Smart Ordering processes payment through the POS and offers quick reorders for repeat guests. It also connects to loyalty systems.

Which Restaurant Chains Use SoundHound?

Named customers include Chipotle, Jersey Mike’s, Applebee’s, Habit Burger, Noodles & Company, White Castle, Church’s Texas Chicken, Red Lobster and Casey’s. SoundHound says it powers more than 15,000 locations.

What Is SoundHound OASYS?

OASYS is SoundHound’s orchestrated agent system, launched in May 2026. It builds, runs, evaluates and improves conversational agents across phone, chat, text, kiosks, TVs and cars, and SoundHound has shown it handling guest and IT service tasks.