Bojangles extends AI drive-thru deal, plans 100 more sites and line-aware upsells

Bojangles has renewed its agreement with drive-thru voice-AI company Hi Auto for multiple years and plans to put its Bo-Linda order taker in 100 more restaurants by mid-2027. The next phase would let Bo-Linda adjust add-on suggestions to the length of the line when cars stack up.

During a rush, Bo-Linda would favor items that take less time to make. Bojangles and Hi Auto say the feature will bring in more add-on sales without slowing service or adding labor. The October 22 announcement gives no launch date or store results for the new feature.

An add-on can lift the check while adding work to a kitchen clearing a line. The promised benefit is testable: compare offer acceptance, service time and cars served per hour during similar peak periods before and after the feature arrives. Sales alone would not show whether service held up.

A new phase for an established rollout#

Bo-Linda is already operating at nearly 500 of Bojangles' more than 890 company and franchised restaurants, according to the joint release. The chain began scaling it in July 2024. The installed base is not new: a Bojangles supplier announcement in October 2025 already put the system at nearly 500 locations and one million weekly orders. The latest release says it now handles more than one million orders a week, but the rounded figures cannot establish a precise year-over-year growth rate.

The addition of 100 more sites by mid-2027 is a plan, not an installation count. The release does not specify how many of those restaurants will be franchised, whether participation is required or what owners pay under the renewed deal. The announcement also does not say whether restaurants already running Bo-Linda will receive the new queue feature automatically. Those details would determine what an individual operator is being asked to buy and evaluate. Bojangles franchisee Michael Haynes offers a favorable account of Bo-Linda's effect on his crews and guests in the announcement. His experience is a useful perspective, but it is a testimonial selected for the release, not a systemwide measurement.

The planned queue signal would build on Hi Auto’s core upsell engine, which the companies say already uses daypart, weather and inventory. Bo-Linda’s connection to Global Payments' Genius point-of-sale platform through XPI, and an image that helps staff match orders to cars after two lanes converge, are also part of the described setup. Hi Auto discussed those capabilities in December 2025. They help explain how voice orders reach the point of sale and how staff identify the right vehicle; both predate this deal.

What counts as a successful order?#

Bojangles CIO Richard Del Valle says Bo-Linda processes more than one million orders weekly at a “98%, or better, success rate.” The release does not define success, identify the measurement period or say whether an order finished with human assistance counts. That last question is especially relevant because Hi Auto says its platform has a human-fallback option. A human-assisted order may satisfy a guest while telling an owner something different about how much work the AI removed.

Hi Auto reported more than 93% completion and 96% accuracy across its wider, nearly 1,000-store portfolio in December 2025. Those figures cover several brands and different measures; they cannot be read as a trend against Bojangles' undefined 98% claim. A store-level scorecard separating unassisted completion, crew intervention, final order accuracy and corrections would tell franchisees much more.

For owners, the promised sales gain will mean more if Bojangles also shows what happens to service time at the stores using the feature.