McDonald’s will terminate AI drive-thru pilot test
Published on: Jun 19, 2024
The restaurant partnered with IBM to deploy the technology across 100 restaurants to improve and speed up operations.
McDonald’s is ending its pilot project for AI implementation across drive-thru restaurants in the US. The fast food brand partnered with IBM in 2021 to establish Automated Order Taker technology powered by AI in order to enhance operations across 100 locations.
According to a report by CNBC, the chain will terminate the test by July 26 and is planning on rethinking its AI implementations. Some of the issues encountered during the trial include difficulties interpreting different accents and dialects, affecting order accuracy.
Although this project has ended, McDonald’s told CNBC that it won’t stop assessing AI possibilities for its drive-thru locations in the future. Recently, the company announced a new partnership with Google Cloud, although no new information has been made public at the time.
On the other hand, IBM has stated that it intends to continue its collaboration with the chain on “a variety of other projects.”
