• McDonald is looking for other partners for AI chatbot-based ordering.
  • McDonald will remove the tech from the over 100 restaurants it’s been testing the system in after partnering with IBM in 2021.

OUR TAKE
Even though McDonald’s is removing the tech that doesn’t mean a person won’t have a computer ask if he wants fries with that. AI is already being tested or used at the drive-thru window at Hardee’s Krystal, Wendy’s Dunkin’, and many other restaurants.
–Revel Cheng, BTW reporter

Fast food chain McDonald’s has said it will remove AI tech from its drive-thru stores, with a plan to have it completely removed from stores by the end of next month.

What happened

If the local McDonald’s has been getting order confidently wrong with an AI chatbot at the drive-thru, I have good news: The company is ending the program for now. The company told franchisees that it’s winding down an AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM “no later than July 26, 2024,” according to trade publication Restaurant Business.

It’s not clear why the company is ending the IBM deal, though. It told Restaurant Business it was testing whether the voice ordering chatbot could speed up service and that the test left it confident “that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future.”

A potential option could involve the company’s vague announcement of a Google deal in December. Bloomberg reported that the deal was partly for a chatbot named “Ask Pickles” that employees could use for guidance on things like cleaning ice cream machines.

Also read: McDonald’s & Google AI integration: Will promised benefits materialize?

Also read: McDonald’s, Apple, and Tesla face economic challenges in China

Why it’s important

“As we move forward, our work with IBM has given us the confidence that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants’ future,” McDonald’s said to the trade publication Restaurant Business.

While the technology won’t be used in McDonald’s stores for the time being, IBM says it’s in talks with other restaurant chains to potentially bring its AI to their drive-thru windows.

Fast food companies in general are hungry for AI. White Castle has been testing AI provided by speech recognition company SoundHound. And Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and others use an AI drive-through chatbot that was underpinned by remote human workers in the Philippines most of the time.

Whatever McDonald’s does with drive-thru AI, that’s only part of the story when it comes to its efforts to automate previously human-performed tasks. The company also offers things like mobile ordering and in-store kiosks and has tested drone deliveries, kitchen robots, and weird AI hiring tools.