it falsely claimed that its own AI product eliminated the need for human order-taking. In fact, the vast majority of drive-thru orders placed through this version of Presto Voice required human intervention. [...] the AI speech recognition technology in all units of Presto Voice that the company had then deployed was owned and operated by a third party.
Curated from sec.gov · 14 January 2025 →
Presto Automation sold voice ordering to restaurant chains and told investors it removed the need for a person to take the order. In its own filings in late 2023 it disclosed that more than 70 percent of orders taken by Presto Voice needed a human agent, working from offshore locations, and that the speech recognition in every deployed unit belonged to somebody else. The SEC charged the company in January 2025 over the misleading statements. This is the case that gave the practice a regulatory name, AI washing, and it is the one to cite when the question is whether over-claiming in a deck is a compliance matter: for a public company, the answer is now yes.
