Square debuts a kiosk with a voice AI that takes your order

Square has introduced the Square Kiosk, a large touchscreen ordering station built around a voice-driven AI assistant. Instead of tapping through menu screens, customers can speak their order out loud and have the system understand them the way a cashier would, according to Square.

Square calls the technology an “agentic, conversational voice layer” — meaning the AI acts independently — that, the company says, “fully understands a seller’s menu and listens and responds in real time, enabling customers to order the way they’d naturally talk to staff.” Customers can ask the assistant questions about menu items, or request modifications and substitutions, without touching the screen.

The Kiosk has a large pill-shaped body built around a 21.5-inch touchscreen. Square says the device uses presence detection to notice when a customer walks up and greet them automatically. When it is time to pay, customers can tap a contactless payment reader or insert a card into a slot built into the hardware.

Pricing

The Square Kiosk is available starting today. It costs $1,999 for businesses already on Square’s Plus or Premium subscription tiers, and Square is also charging a $99-per-device monthly software fee on top of that hardware cost.

Square did not say in its announcement how the voice AI was built, which model or technology powers it, or how it performs for sellers with large or frequently changing menus. Details on how the assistant handles accents, background noise, or several customers talking at once in a busy restaurant or retail store are not yet known.

Voice-ordering kiosks are not new to fast food and retail, but most existing systems rely on scripted menu trees rather than open conversation. Square’s pitch is that a kiosk which listens and responds like a person could speed up lines and cut down on order mistakes, particularly for businesses that already run their menu and payments through Square’s point-of-sale software.

What happens next depends on how sellers respond once the hardware starts showing up in stores. Square has not said how many businesses have ordered the Kiosk ahead of launch, and there is no independent account yet of how the voice assistant performs outside of Square’s own description. Reports from retailers who install the device in the coming weeks should offer the first outside look at the conversational ordering feature in daily use.