After Wendy’s ended its demand pricing scheme and tested its own AI ordering systems, McDonald’s has decided to pull the plug on its agent based ordering experience.

The system was a collaboration between Mickey D’s and IBM. One hundred restaurants originally signed on to pilot the project. McDonald’s customers would roll up to the drive thru and interact with an automated voice assistant to deliver their order and receive their food.

[the company] will make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.

Mason Smoot

McDonald’s Chief Restaurant Officer, Mason Smoot, announced ending the program earlier this week. Since 2021, the system utilized IBM’s AI technology to interpret customers’ voice prompts in their so-called Automated Order Taking (AOT) system. For IBM’s part, the company wanted to work with McDonald’s to improve its own AI-enabled voice recognition and prompting technologies.

While McDonald’s is reevaluating and refining its plans for AOT, we look forward to continuing to work with them on a variety of other projects.

IBM

McDonald’s has always been a process innovator. My first introduction to restaurant automation was at a McDonald’s restaurant in Middle River, Maryland. That restaurant used a robotic fry operations center to prep, fry, and stage French fries for salting and bagging by McD’s employees. Other McDonald’s I’ve visited used conveyors to deliver takeout food to drivers and more.

McDonald’s envisions AI to be a big part of McDonald’s future. As companies continue experimenting with AI, I only hope the technology is utilized in effective ways and not simply a replacement for human intelligence.