McDonald’s drive-thru AI order taking faces another reset

McDonald’s has hit reset again on the drive-thru chatbot that was supposed to smooth service, not expose its rough edges. After testing automated voice ordering in 10 Chicago restaurants in 2021, where the company said accuracy ran about 85% and employees had to step in for roughly 20% of orders, the chain expanded the experiment to more than 100 restaurants before deciding to shut it down and remove the technology by July 26, 2024.

The reversal underscores how quickly AI has moved from a novelty to frontline service work, and how often that work still depends on hidden human backup. McDonald’s sold McD Tech Labs to IBM in 2020 or 2021 as part of a broader agreement to accelerate automated order taking, with IBM saying the deal would complement its AI-driven customer-care work. Even after ending the test, McDonald’s said it still expected voice ordering to be part of its restaurants’ future.

The company’s wider digital strategy has not slowed. In December 2023, McDonald’s announced a partnership with Google Cloud to connect thousands of restaurants worldwide with cloud technology beginning in 2024, part of its Accelerating the Arches plan built around Delivery, Digital and Drive Thru. It also said it aimed to grow its loyalty program from 150 million to 250 million 90-day active users by 2027, a sign that the chain sees data, apps and automation as central to keeping customers coming back.

McDonald’s is not alone in treating voice AI as labor strategy. Wendy’s said its FreshAi system, tested in Columbus, Ohio, averaged 86% accuracy without human intervention and was meant to assist crew members rather than replace them. Yum! Brands said in July 2024 that Taco Bell’s Voice AI was already running in more than 100 U.S. drive-thrus across 13 states and would expand to hundreds more by the end of the year. Checkers & Rally’s said its Spanish-language drive-thru voice AI had reached about 350 locations after a beta test at five restaurants.

For restaurant workers, the selling points are familiar: faster lines, fewer pressure points and less routine labor at the speaker. But the McDonald’s reset shows the tradeoff clearly. The technology can take orders, sometimes well enough to scale, yet it still stumbles in noisy, customized, real-world service, leaving companies to decide how much automation a drive-thru can handle before a human has to take over.