McDonald's Ends Brief AI Drive Thru Experiment

Recently, McDonald’s rolled out an Artificial Intelligence experiment at several test locations across the country. The company was tinkering with AI taking orders at the drive-thru instead of human workers. It appears they may need to go back to the drawing board.

The technology used in the partnership with IBM had trouble interpreting different accents and dialects, leading to inaccurate orders, including adding nine sweet teas to one customer’s order and giving another customer an ice cream cone topped with bacon.

McDonald's now says that after a "thoughtful review," it is hitting pause on its artificial intelligence drive-thru partnership with IBM. The chain told franchisees that the Automated Order Taker technology would be shut down by the end of July. The technology had been tested in more than 100 restaurants over the last two years, and while this setback may seem dire, Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, writes "We feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly."

The company says while this experimental test run is ending, it is likely to reintroduce the use of AI at its drive-thru windows sometime in the future, according to Restaurant Business .

Dr. Nick Mattei, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Tulane University says the McDonald’s example shows that chatbots are still not adebt at interacting with customers in a complex way. While some particular orders may need someone to interpret and understand what the customer means, these AIs are not intuitive enough to do so. Mattei went on to say that it’s hard to predict upcoming advances in AI technology as it is used in different applications and collects more data.

Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald’s USA, told franchisees that McDonald’s will continue to evaluate its plans to make “an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.”

McDonald's said the work with IBM "has given us the confidence that a voice ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants' future."

Dr. Mattei went on to say that physical labor jobs would most likely be the last ones to fall to AI, as such an endeavor would require significant robotics work.