Joe Park on technology strategy
From Yum! Brands CTO on AI's Role in Fast Food & Partnership with Nvidia · · Leading Indicator
“If it's core to our restaurants operations we really want to own it we'll build it and it's kept within team. If it's innovation bleeding edge technology that we're chasing after we're going to partner. We're not in the business of trying to create our own LLMs we're going to absolutely partner with the leading companies there and hence the partnership with Nvidia.”
On , Joe Park, Former Chief Digital & Technology Officer and President of Byte by Yum at Yum! Brands, spoke about technology strategy during Yum! Brands CTO on AI's Role in Fast Food & Partnership with Nvidia on Leading Indicator.
About Joe Park
Joe Park, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Yum! Brands, discussed the company's use of artificial intelligence in an interview published on April 26, 2025. He stated that Yum! Brands views technology as playing a role in nearly every part of a customer's journey, aiming to create frictionless ordering, easier operations for team members, and more profitable businesses for franchisees. Park noted that the company's digital sales mix grew from 19% pre-COVID to over 50% currently, and he described the company as "probably more like an e-commerce company than a traditional brick and mortar." He outlined a technology philosophy of starting with a business problem first, then partnering with operations and marketing teams to address metrics such as order accuracy, customer satisfaction, and speed of service. Park highlighted the company's partnership with Nvidia to accelerate its AI ambitions, and noted that all 7,000 Taco Bell locations already have two edge computers in each store, allowing AI to run within the restaurant rather than in the cloud. He said that voice AI in Taco Bell drive-thrus has been received positively by team members, who report it helps them multitask. Park stated that Yum! Brands builds technology that is core to restaurant operations, such as kitchen management, but partners with leading companies for bleeding-edge innovations like large language models. He also said the company is not pursuing dynamic pricing, believing that area still requires human knowhow due to promotions and customer demographics.