TLDR:
- McDonald’s is ending its AI-powered drive-thrus with IBM by July 26.
- The reasons behind the decision are not fully explained, but McDonald’s plans to explore voice ordering solutions.
McDonald’s is pulling out of its venture with IBM that brought AI to some of its drive-thrus. The fast food giant is slated to take the feature offline by July 26, according to Restaurant Business. The AI drive-thru experiment began in 2021 and was expanded in 2022. While IBM will no longer be relied on for AI drive-thrus, the two companies still apparently have business ties for other parts of McDonald’s operations. The reasoning behind the end of the AI drive-thru as it currently exists is unclear, but McDonald’s plans to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly. They see an opportunity to advance restaurant technology and continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions for a future voice ordering solution. This decision might have been influenced by privacy issues and the potential to explore better or cheaper voice recognition technology from other sources.