{"id":19329,"date":"2026-11-04T15:23:47","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T22:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=19329"},"modified":"2026-11-04T15:23:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T22:23:47","slug":"starbucks-eyes-customer-recognition-to-speed-up-drive-thru-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/11\/04\/starbucks-eyes-customer-recognition-to-speed-up-drive-thru-orders\/","title":{"rendered":"Starbucks Eyes “Customer Recognition” To Speed Up Drive-Thru Orders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Headline article below) I don’t remember the last time I had a coffee from Charbucks, but it’s been well over a decade, maybe two (I value good coffee and roast my own coffee<\/a> picking a roast level below charred to death used for shelf life). And today in most areas there are better coffee shops, and even Buc-ee’s coffee is better. When I was working about a decade ago, coworkers were all using the app on their phones to order and go pickup Starbucks, and I’d imagine Starbucks collects a lot of data. Let’s see, and nope, wouldn’t make the cut for installing on my phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It kind of sounds like they’re thinking of utilizing facial recognition as determining vehicle wouldn’t be enough because families can share vehicles. And remember that a lot of businesses want you to film a selfie of your face as you turn it slightly side to side for their facial recognition data gathering, and I won’t believe otherwise regardless of what they say. No thank you to any business that wants to violate my privacy like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/reclaimthenet.org\/starbucks-customer-recognition-drive-thru-surveillance<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
The coffee run is becoming a small, highly optimized audition for the surveillance economy.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Green<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Ken Macon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starbucks wants its drive-thru to know who you are before you order, the company\u2019s Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol revealed during the coffee giant\u2019s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Starbucks is \u201cexploring experiences that recognize participating customers as they arrive, present personalized digital menus, and make payment more effortless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niccol added, \u201cWe\u2019re early in this work, and we\u2019ll test, learn, and scale what works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the first time the company has shown interest in \u201crecognizing\u201d its customers in its physical locations. In 2023, it was trialling Amazon\u2019s palm payment system, Amazon One<\/u><\/a>, in a store in Edmonds, Washington. And in New York, Amazon and Starbucks got sued<\/u><\/a> for collecting biometric data via cameras and sensors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it\u2019s the drive-thru\u2019s turn, and the idea is to \u201crecognize\u201d customers as soon as they pull in \u2013 but it\u2019s unclear what technology will be used to do that. The company has not disclosed whether it would be the app, an account signal, a phone, a license plate, a voice, or a face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor has Starbucks said where it plans to test this, how it plans to obtain consent from those who will be \u201crecognized\u201d in this way, whether customers will still be able to use the drive-thru without being profiled in this way, or how long their data will be kept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All we know is that Niccol said, \u201cRoughly half of our customers use the drive-thru, making it a significant opportunity\u201d that the company wants to make \u201cfaster, more convenient, and more personal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u201cparticipating\u201d in the context of \u201cexperiences that recognize participating customers\u201d suggests that this will be an opt-in scheme, but it is not yet clear what this will mean in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When an analyst asked for a timetable regarding this project, the company replied, \u201cIt would be premature to get specific on this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starbucks is also looking to unlock \u201cmore personalized touchpoints through relevant content and recommendations tailored to customer tastes and preferences\u201d via its app, and is counting on AI \u201cwith the potential to support conversational and agentic ordering over time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fiscal 2027, the company will begin testing \u201cbackground AI models in the drive-through that help our baristas input orders more accurately and efficiently as they interact with customers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starbucks said that its loyalty program, Starbucks Rewards, now has a record 36 million 90-day active members, and that the next step is \u201cgoing to be more around additional personalization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason is this \u2013 \u201cIf you can improve throughput, a lot of good things happen from there, both on the top line and bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, customers who were \u201cfreaked out\u201d by biometric payments were older people, an attendant at the 2023 pilot in Washington said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit<\/a> in New York was filed over the use of Amazon\u2019s Just Walk Out cameras and sensors that track customers as they pick up items, and are supposed to charge them for these when they leave the store. The plaintiffs\u2019 attorney said at the time that people should be able to \u201cdecide for themselves whether they want to provide measurements of the size and shape of their body as a condition of getting a sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you link a car pulling into a drive-thru with a loyalty program, an order, payment, and preference data, a simple stop for coffee becomes a logged visit: when you come, what you buy, and which suggestions you respond to by spending more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Headline article below) I don’t remember the last time I had a coffee from Charbucks, but it’s been well over a decade, maybe two (I value good coffee and roast my own coffee picking a roast level below charred to death used for shelf life). And today in most areas there are better coffee shops, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19331,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19329\/revisions\/19331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}