Yum Brands Battles Rival Restaurants With Proprietary AI

Yum Brands is seeing both its restaurant operators and customers benefit from the Byte by Yum technology platform the company announced in February 2025.

The platform is a collection of proprietary software-as-a-service (SaaS) artificial intelligence-driven products designed for the quick-service restaurant (QSR) company’s KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Habit Burger & Grill restaurants.

During a Thursday (Feb. 5) earnings call, Yum Brands Chief Financial Officer Ranjith Roy described Byte by Yum as “the only multi-brand, multi-market QSR technology platform built by restaurant operators for restaurant operators.”

Since their introduction, components of the platform have reduced stockouts by up to 85%, lowered aggregator ordering failure rate by up to 75% and improved restaurants’ consumer satisfaction by up to 10%, Roy said.

“Such improvements directly support sales conversion, consumer trust and restaurant efficiency,” Roy said. “Over time, these improvements will continue to contribute to higher same-store sales growth and stronger unit economics in support of our Raise the Bar ambitions.”

“Furthermore, as the pace of technology change accelerates, our ability to own our data and key strategic components of our technology stack provides a differentiated competitive advantage to stay ahead,” Roy said.

Yum Brands offers the components of the technology platform to restaurant operators in two interconnected bundles and à la carte. The Smart Ops bundle includes point of sale, menu and kitchen management applications, while the Digital Ordering bundle includes web and app ordering, menu and third-party marketplace applications.

At the end of 2025, Smart Ops was in 7,000 restaurants and Digital Ordering was in 18,000. In total, including the two bundles and the à la carte options, at least one Byte product was live in 38,000 restaurants.

Having built, integrated and proven the platform in the United States, Yum Brands is now focused on “product excellence and accelerating adoption across our global system,” Roy said.

Yum Brands CEO Chris Turner said during the call that the Byte by Yum platform, together with the company’s loyalty ecosystem and AI-driven personalization marketing, helped increase Yum Brands’ digital system sales to $11 billion and its digital mix to 60% in the fourth quarter.

The company defines “digital system sales” as transactions in which consumers’ orders are primarily facilitated by automated technology, according to a Wednesday earnings release.

Yum Brands saw growth across all its digital channels, including mobile apps, loyalty programs, first- and third-party delivery and kiosk ordering, Turner said.

“Owning our core digital and technology platforms gives us an edge over the competition,” Turner said, and the company’s scale “uniquely positions us to develop common platforms and deploy them across brands and markets, creating a scalable foundation for the next wave of digital innovation.”