McDonald’s is set to deploy artificial intelligence at 43,000 locations.

The fast food chain wants to ‘cut wait times’ and ‘improve customer experience’ by revamping its stores with AI-powered equipment.

How many human employees will the AI makeover replace?

That remains to be seen.

Brian Rice, McDonald’s Chief Information Officer, claimed “stress” as a factor to seek artificial intelligence.

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“Our restaurants, frankly, can be very stressful,” he said, according to The U.S. Sun.

“We have customers at the counter, we have customers at our drive-through, couriers coming in for delivery, delivery at curbside,” Rice continued.

“Technology solutions will alleviate the stress,” he added.

From The U.S. Sun:

The restaurant hopes that better tech-enabled experiences will triumph in it growing its loyalty patrons from 175 million to 250 million by 2027.

To accomplish that, McDonald’s tapped Google Cloud in late 2023 to bring more computing power to each of its restaurants—enabling them to process and analyze data on-site.

The setup, known as edge computing, can be a faster, cheaper option than sending data to the cloud, especially in more far-flung locations with less reliable cloud connections.

Edge computing will enable applications like predicting when kitchen equipment is likely to break down

The burger chain said its suppliers have begun installing sensors on kitchen equipment that will give data to the edge computing system and allow franchisees a “real-time” view into how their restaurants are operating.

More from the New York Post:

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Rice shared that the Golden Arches will be looking for a “generative AI virtual manager” that will perform administrative tasks including shift scheduling instead of a manager.

The edge computing system will also be able to power voice AI at the drive-through, which McDonald’s is exploring with Google’s cloud-computing arm — a venture they have already unsuccessfully tried out.

In 2021, McDonald’s teamed up with IBM to use artificial intelligence software to take customers’ orders. In July 2024, the Golden Arches ended its AI-powered automated drive-thru experiment at more than 100 locations after angry customers reported receiving items they didn’t order.

But McD’s isn’t the first fast food chain to do this. Wendy’s recently announced that it will implement artificial intelligence to help take orders at hundreds of their drive-through windows by the end of the year.

Wendy’s AI voice assistant — dubbed “FreshAI” — first began testing in 2023 and is currently used in about 100 Wendy’s locations, and it’s expected to expand to somewhere between 500 and 600 locations by the end of the year.

 

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