Starbucks is exploring a personalized drive-thru menu that could recognize participating customers as they arrive, show them tailored digital menu boards and streamline payment. Chief executive Brian Niccol described the idea during the company’s fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call, according to The Verge. This is a proposal for testing, not a product launch.
Niccol said Starbucks intends to explore an experience that identifies customers who take part, then presents personalized menus and makes payment easier. The company has not given a deployment date for the digital boards. Niccol characterized the work as early and said Starbucks would test ideas, assess them and expand those that work.
When will Starbucks launch personalized drive-thru menus?
Starbucks has not announced when, or whether, personalized digital menus will reach its drive-thru locations. The company also has not said how it would recognize customers, what information it would use, which stores would participate, what opt-in process would apply, or how customer data would be handled. The available details do not establish the use of cameras, facial recognition, license-plate reading or biometric data.
The timing Starbucks did put on the calendar concerns a different system. Starting in 2027, it plans to test background AI models at drive-thrus to help baristas enter orders more accurately and efficiently, Niccol said. That is an employee-facing operational test, separate from the proposed customer-recognition and personalized-menu experience.
The company is also pursuing personalization elsewhere. Starbucks plans to add AI to search and discovery in its app and has said it may eventually offer conversational and agentic ordering. Separately, it is considering app menu content and recommendations based on customers’ preferences, according to CX Dive. Those app plans fit the same general push, but they do not answer the unresolved questions around drive-thru recognition.
Other fast-food chains are trying related ideas. The Verge reported that Taco Bell is experimenting with menus that can change their layout, content and visuals for individual cars. McDonald’s, meanwhile, is piloting a chatbot feature at a small number of drive-thrus that can identify returning customers and let them order their usual items. Neither system describes Starbucks’ proposed implementation.
For now, Starbucks has described the intended experience rather than the machinery behind it: participating customers could see a menu chosen for them before ordering. The company has yet to provide the details that would determine how voluntary, widespread or useful that experience becomes.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
