McDonald’s is testing voice-activated drive-thru AI again. | Photoc ourtesy of McDonald’s.
McDonald’s unveiled the next iteration of its business strategy at its semi-annual convention in Las Vegas this week, called McDonald’s Next.
The strategy codifies a lot of the company’s work over the past several months, including menu upgrades and technology improvements. It also includes a focus on hospitality, a newly redesigned restaurant and an apparent dedication to influencer marketing.
Included in this strategy is AI, including a test of drive-thru AI, which the company is testing in five locations. McDonald’s AI voice is nicknamed “Archy,” a refreshing divergence from the typical female names that restaurant chains—and many other companies—give their AI voicebots.
Those of you with a memory that dates back more than two years knows that McDonald’s tried this before.
McDonald’s in fact was one of the first major companies to work on drive-thru AI. The company tested the technology starting in 2021. It was part of an effort to increase the use of technology in the drive-thru, which captures the bulk of the chain’s business.
The company over the previous two years had toyed with some in-house technology, acquired in a pair of deals that ultimately created McD Tech Labs. It sold the labs to IBM in 2021 and that same year sold Dynamic Yield, the personalization and decision logic company, to MasterCard. But it then started working with IBM on drive-thru AI.
McDonald’s took a deliberative approach with its AI voice test while it watched much smaller chains like Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., Krystal and other brands push hard into the use of AI order takers. But in 2024 the company ended the test without expanding its use, and IBM said it would start working with other restaurant chains. The technology was not ready for prime time.
Drive-thru voice AI is something of a holy grail for major fast-food chains. All the big, legacy brands would love to see this technology work, because it would replace a task taken by an employee. It’s been shown to increase average check because the bot always suggestive sells.
But the search for that particular grail has been encumbered by a technology that can’t quite meet the demands of large-scale restaurant chains.
McDonald’s operates about 13,600 locations in the U.S. It has locations in urban New York and rural Iowa, the Texas border and Montana. There are different dialects and ordering styles in many of these locations that make the prospect of a single solution challenging at best.
Consumers have also taken the technology to its limits, which is what happened to Taco Bell, which had to rethink the idea after one man ordered 18,000 waters.
Proponents have long said that the order takers are just as accurate, if not more, than humans and that workers backing it up can quickly fix mistakes. But it’s clearly not quite ready for mass appeal, for otherwise we would see this used in a lot more big chains on a much wider scale than we do now.
But even if the technology does improve and get more accurate while it fixes glitches, McDonald’s would be wise to tread carefully.
Americans are concerned that AI is taking jobs, McDonald’s replacing a human order taker with a robot may give off the impression that the company is using AI to take away a job—even if that is not the company’s goal. That could damage the company’s reputation in ways the brand may not even see yet. And young Americans in particular are increasingly skeptical of the technology.
More to the point, the company is intent on improving hospitality inside its restaurants. But replacing a human order-taker with a bot eliminates one opportunity for hospitality, even if it’s in the form of a warm, and human, greeting.
