McDonald’s Is Backing Out of AI Drive-Thrus — For Now?

McDonald’s is officially choosing humans over AI — at least for now. 

Late last week, McDonald’s corporate sent an email to franchise owners explaining that it’s ending its two-year test of automated ordering, according to Restaurant Business, which obtained a copy of the email. 

As Food & Wine previously reported, McDonald’s introduced “Automated Order Taking (AOT)” in 2021 via a partnership with IBM to provide ordering solutions to customers and attempt to make the process seamless. However, if you’ve been on the internet over the last few years, you know that those AI ordering systems led to some rather hilarious mistakes — and some even funnier TikToks. 

According to Restaurant Business, McDonald’s didn’t provide a reason for ending the test run but did note it would end on July 26. 

“While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,” Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, said in the email, according to Restaurant Business. “After a thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current partnership with IBM on AOT and the technology will be shut off in all restaurants currently testing it no later than July 26, 2024.”

However, that doesn’t mean the AI ordering system is gone forever, as Smoot added that it will “evaluate” all decisions by the end of the year. The company also noted this isn’t the end of its partnership with IBM, as it will continue using its other products across the globe. 

While this may prove that the machine uprising isn’t happening today, it could still happen tomorrow, or at least soon, as McDonald’s is also far from alone in its use of AI. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Harshraj Ghai, whose family operates 180 Burger Kings, Taco Bells, and Popeyes chicken restaurants across California and the U.S., says his company has moved up plans to install self-service kiosks to directly combat the increased cost of workers in the wake of the minimum wage hike in the Golden State. And, as Joe Park, the chief digital and technology officer at Yum Brands, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill restaurants, told the Wall Street Journal, the company is going “AI-first.”

“Our vision of [quick-service restaurants] is that an AI-first mentality works every step of the way,” Park told WSJ. “If you think about the major journeys within a restaurant that can be AI-powered, we believe it’s endless.” At the very least, it will surely be funny fodder for TikTok.