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Sodaclick Conversational AI Finds Its Voice with ASUS NUC
Sodaclick, a pioneer in conversational AI, is transforming the self-service experience. Instead of unresponsive touch screens or rigid, script-based voice prompts, the Sodaclick AI delivers natural, human-like engagements in drive-thrus, kiosesks, and other order-taking applications.
But first, the company needed to bring its cloud-based AI to local establishments. Retailers and quick-service restaurants rarely have IT staff on-site, so any Internet access issues could last for hours. To avoid service disruptions, Sodaclick needed a solution that could run its sophisticated voice AI interface locally, without relying on continuous cloud connectivity.
The ASUS NUC 14 Pro emerged as the ideal solution, offering the necessary performance and reliability to ensure uninterrupted service, regardless of network conditions. This powerful, compact, and cost-effective solution enabled Sodaclick to maintain high-quality, consistent interactions, regardless of network conditions.
“The ASUS NUC offers high levels of performance and efficiency, all at the edge. We have full confidence in the product and know the ASUS team is always available for support.”
—Salwa Al-Tahan, Marketing Executive, Sodaclick Ltd
Partnership Highlights
- Robust processing capabilities enable natural, human-like conversational AI interactions with customers
- Leveraged the NUC’s perfect balance between capabilities and cost to bring their conversational AI to market
- Intel’s familiar architecture, rich software ecosystem, and world-class support from ASUS and Intel allowed for a streamlined rollout
- Ported their cloud-based AI solution to the edge while maintaining the ability to run LLMs locally
The Challenge: Deploying Conversational AI-Powered Ordering at the Edge
TDespite the diverse use cases for Sodaclick’s conversational AI, there was one common thread between customers across industries: they all wanted a seamless self-service ordering process. This meant Sodaclick needed to find the best way to make its large language models (LLMs) available in drive-thrus and kiosesks. However, making this possible surfaced several key challenges:
Deploying their conversational AI into diverse environments like drive-thrus and kiosesks while creating a natural-feeling ordering process/engagement.
- Ensuring their solution could run locally, continuously and reliably at the edge even during network disruptions without impacting the order-taking process.
- Having the performance required to support AI speech recognition in 96 languages (up to 4 simultaneously) without any wake words.
- Encrypting all AI transcription data to protect sensitive customer data and maintain regulatory compliance.
- Providing a customizable LLM solution that brands can tailor based on unique customer needs, products, loyalty programs, and other brand-specific requirements.
To address these challenges, Sodaclick sought a hardware partner that could offer an easy-to-use, powerful platform capable of supporting their AI deployment with minimal development effort.
The Solution: ASUS NUC Enables Automated Ordering
Sodaclick’s experience developing on Intel’s architecture, coupled with the ASUS NUC’s robust capabilities, made the NUC an easy choice. The NUC was cost-effective, easy-to-use, high performing, and most importantly, it offered rock-solid build quality that could run LLMs locally, with or without a stable network connection.
“With the ASUS NUC, our customers get a competitively priced solution that doesn’t compromise on reliability, performance, or ease of use. It’s this balance of affordability and quality that makes it an ideal choice for large-scale implementations of our voice AI technology.”
—Salwa Al-Tahan, Marketing Executive, Sodaclick Ltd.
Key features of the ASUS NUC solution include:
- High-performance processing powered by the latest Intel® Core™ processors for running AI-powered voice interfaces both in-store and at drive-throughs.
- Streamlined porting of cloud technology to the edge using Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit, which enables rapid optimization of AI across its platforms.
- Thunderbolt™ 4 technology for brilliant 4K displays, enabling crystal-clear and highly responsive visual experiences.
- Enhanced security measures, including AES-256 encryption and SSL/TLS certificates to keep customer data protected in any environment
- World-class support from both Intel and ASUS, including access to new hardware, demo kits, and the ASUS support team.
The ASUS NUC gave Sodaclick a strong foundation to build from. Plus, with the ability to customize the platform to each client, they were able to integrate brand-specific language to create an even more personalized customer experience.
Sodaclick uses NUC 14 Pro due to its versatile connectivity, powerful CPU, and enhanced security features
The Results: AI-Powered Order-Taking Customers Actually Love
The Sodaclick-ASUS partnership allowed the company to rapidly develop a platform to run its conversational AI at the edge without losing focus on the importance of creating a seamless customer experience from initial order to checkout.
With the NUC, Sodaclick now has a high-performance solution that can deliver highly personalized and customized experiences while boosting customer loyalty and reducing costs for its clients. More importantly, it offers companies a cost-effective solution that can easily scale across locationss, with powerful encryption, ensuring sensitive customer and transactional data stays protected.
“Cost-effectiveness is crucial for our customers, who often need to deploy our solution across hundreds or thousands of locationss. However, we’re not just looking for the cheapest option. We chose the ASUS NUC because it offers excellent value.”
—Salwa Al-Tahan, Marketing Executive, Sodaclick Ltd.
The partnership accelerated the development process of localizing its LLMs, allowing Sodaclick to capitalize on its first-to-market advantage. Now the company’s clients can deploy conversational AI to handle customer interactions without worrying about Internet outages and other service disruptions. The result is a highly available voice-enabled ordering system that’s designed for the modern customer experience.
Growing Into New Industries
Sodaclick’s mission to create immersive customer experiences required the right mix of performance, cost-effectiveness and reliability. The ASUS NUC delivered on all of these requirements, offering a robust platform for the company’s conversational AI.
These same attributes make the NUC an attractive choice for deployments in other sectors. In fact, Sodaclick is already exploring new industries for its customized LLMs, with pilot projects launching in airports across Europe.
As Sodaclick eyes future expansion into new markets, the scalable, reliable NUC platform and an experienced partner like ASUS will help them remain a leader in AI-powered customer interactions.
About Sodaclick
Sodaclick is driving the future of AI digital solutions by creating immersive customer experiences for brands globally, including in the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Australia.
The company’s AI platform excels by overcoming the shortcomings of script-based interfaces for a more authentic and human-like experience. With a global clientele in the restaurant and hospitality industries, their AI-powered ordering systems are the go-to solution for drive-throughs, quick-service restaurants (QSR), and retailers looking to provide on-demand ordering that’s consistent, highly personalized, and highly engaging interactions.
