McDonald's abandons artificial intelligence: the system designed to collect orders and installed in certain restaurants Cine Park, in fact sowed disorder in the collection of commands that users gave from the seat of their car. Automated order taking had given rise to daring culinary combinations, or misunderstandings that were difficult to manage, as reported by several users on social networks: Trim of bacon on ice cream, but also unsolicited supplies of hundreds of “nuggets”, those chicken nuggets characteristic of fast food chains. In other cases, simple problems arose while executing and sending commands.
Difficulties
Mason Smoot, Director of Restaurants at McDonald's USA, was therefore forced to announce: “After careful consideration, McDonald's has decided to end our current partnership with IBM for AOT and the technology will be decommissioned in all restaurants that use it. 'use. July 26, 2024.” The system was in fact developed in partnership with IBM, one of the main IT multinationals. The trial began in 2021 and involved only a small part of the 13,000 McDonald's points of sale in the United States. CNBCAt the origin of the communication problem between clients and software lies the latter's difficulty in understanding dialects and accents.
The competitors
Meanwhile, the fast food chain's competitors have adopted similar solutions with more success: Wendy's relies on Google Cloud for counter orders Cine Park, successful in 86% of cases. Carl's Jr. sandwiches and Taco John's burritos rely on Presto, with a success rate of up to 90%. David Henkes, an expert on the subject cited by Wired, pointed out that “artificial intelligence will clearly be a part of restaurant automation and efficiency, but the technology is still in its infancy. McDonald's experience and commitment to AI shows the potential benefits, but also the limitations of current technology. »
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