McDonald’s is always trying to innovate to improve the customer experience at their restaurants.
But fans were not loving it when they made one decision.
And McDonald’s is making a big change after customers ran into this awful situation.
McDonald’s brief experiment with AI technology is coming to an end
Artificial intelligence (AI) is touted as a breakthrough technology that will evolutive the way humans live and work.
The fast food industry has struggled with worker shortages since the pandemic when President Joe Biden paid people to not work.
And minimum wage increases in states like California have driven up the cost of labor.
McDonald’s decided to experiment with using AI-powered automated order-taking (AOT) technology at its drive-thrus to help process customer orders.
The fast food chain partnered with IBM two years ago to run a test program on using AI at certain locations.
Now, the program is coming to an end at the more than 100 locations that were using it.
McDonald’s USA Chief Restaurant Officer Mason Smoot told franchisees the AOT technology would be phased out at the end of July.
“While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,” Smoot said. “After a thoughtful review, McDonald’s has decided to end our current partnership with IBM on AOT and the technology will be shut off in all restaurants currently testing it no later than July 26, 2024.”
Smoot said that the company will deliberate about how to move forward with AI ordering.
McDonald’s AI ordering technology kept making mistakes
Videos circulated on social media of users trying to order at one McDonald’s AI drive-thrus with disastrous results.
A TikTok user explained how she had nine sweet teas added to her order by mistake.
“So, y’all know how it’s 2023 and robots are like taking over the world,” the TikToker said. “Anyway, this morning I tried to go to McDonald’s and get my daily dose of caffeine and some breakfast…She adds the Diet Coke from the next line to my screen. So tell me why when I tell her—this robot—that I have no Diet Coke, for some reason she took the Diet Coke off and made it nine sweet teas!”
@resinsbiren #greenscreen @mcdonalds #nine #sweettea #mcdonalds #robots #friday #caffeine
The order coming from the other drive-thru lane confused the AI.
Other users reported similar problems.
TikToker Madilynn Cameron shared a video of her trying to order a cup of water and vanilla ice cream.
“I just want a large water and a cup of ice cream,” Cameron said.
Instead, it kept trying to add butter packets to her order instead of her sweet treat.
“Where’d the butter come from!” Cameron exclaimed.
Cailyn Sykora shared a TikTok video of her trying to order Chicken McNuggets and the AI going haywire.
She ended up with a $222 bill after the AI added ten orders of McNuggets.
Sykora yells stop during the video while her friend is laughing uncontrollably.
@typical_redhead_ I thought TikTok would appreciate this 💀 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #comedy #fail
♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
AI might be the technology of the future, but at McDonald’s it wasn’t ready for primetime.
