McDonald's pulls IBM AI drive-through ordering after bacon ice cream and nugget avalanche go viral
Source: bbc.com ↗
This technology is proven to have some of the most comprehensive capabilities in the industry, fast and accurate in some of the most demanding conditions.
After five years of testing IBM's voice-recognition ordering system across 100+ US drive-throughs, McDonald's has decided the technology that confidently added stacks of butter instead of caramel and racked up hundreds of dollars in unsolicited chicken nuggets probably isn't ready for prime time. The chain is pulling the plug by end of July.
The mishaps — immortalized in TikTok videos racking up hundreds of thousands of views — managed to achieve something the technology's critics initially worried it would: it made the case for human workers. McDonald's says it's still confident AI will be "part of its restaurants' future," which is the corporate equivalent of saying "we still believe in the dream" while quietly backing out of the room.