McDonald\u2019s has decided to halt its AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM. The company announced to its franchisees that the program will end no later than July 26th, 2024. This decision affects over 100 restaurants where the AI chatbot system was being tested.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s began its partnership with IBM in 2021 to test AI-driven voice ordering at drive-thrus. The aim was to see if the technology could speed up service. Despite ending the current partnership, McDonald\u2019s remains confident that voice-ordering solutions will be part of their future.<\/p>\n
There are hints that McDonald\u2019s might explore other partnerships for AI solutions. In December, McDonald\u2019s announced a vague deal with Google. Bloomberg reported that this deal included a chatbot named \u201cAsk Pickles,\u201d which employees could use for guidance on various tasks like cleaning ice cream machines. Google is already working with Wendy\u2019s, which has been testing AI-based drive-thru orders since last year and has expanded the trial.<\/p>\n
Fast food chains are increasingly adopting AI technologies. Wendy\u2019s, White Castle, Carl\u2019s Jr., and Hardee\u2019s are among those testing AI drive-thru systems. Some of these systems, like the one used by Carl\u2019s Jr. and Hardee\u2019s, rely on remote human workers to support the AI.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s is not limiting its automation efforts to drive-thrus. The company has also been implementing mobile ordering, in-store kiosks, drone deliveries, kitchen robots, and AI-based hiring tools.<\/p>\n
While McDonald\u2019s is ending its current AI drive-thru ordering test with IBM, it remains committed to incorporating voice-ordering solutions in the future. The fast-food giant is exploring other partnerships and continues to embrace automation to improve efficiency and service.<\/p>\n
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McDonald\u2019s has decided to halt its AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM. The company announced to its franchisees that the program will end no later than July 26th, 2024. This decision affects over 100 restaurants where the AI chatbot system was being tested. McDonald\u2019s began its partnership with IBM in 2021 to test AI-driven voice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1350,9,215],"tags":[1365,275],"class_list":["post-45571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-todays-news","category-top-stories","tag-todays-news","tag-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45573,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45571\/revisions\/45573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}