McDonald's sees future for AI drive-throughs despite rocky trial

McDonald’s has ended its trial of an artificial intelligence (AI) system in its drive-through restaurants after customers reported mishaps with their orders.

The fast food chain has rolled out the software, which was developed by IBM and uses voice recognition to process orders, at around 100 of its US restaurants since 2021.

But the system has proved unreliable, with videos going viral of customers receiving bacon-topped ice cream and hundreds of dollars’ worth of McNuggets being added to orders.

One TikTok showed a woman trying to order vanilla ice cream without caramel, only for the machine to add packets of cream to her order.

McDonald’s has told franchisees it will remove the technology from all its sites by the end of July, according to Restaurant Business.

A McDonald’s spokesperson told The Caterer the trial had been designed to see if AI could be used to ease pressure on its human restaurant teams.

They said there had been “many learnings” from the test and the chain still believed there was a chance to explore the use of voice ordering technology in its restaurants.

The spokesperson said: “After thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current global partnership with IBM on AOT beyond this year. IBM remains a trusted partner and we will still utilize many of their products across our global system.

“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.

“We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

AI is already being used in contract catering, with ESS and Aramark among those to introduce check-out free food and drink stores as part of their offer.