{"id":1471726,"date":"2024-06-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1471726"},"modified":"2024-06-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T04:00:00","slug":"clearly-not-satisfied-mcdonalds-winds-down-ibms-drive-thru-ai-chatbot-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/clearly-not-satisfied-mcdonalds-winds-down-ibms-drive-thru-ai-chatbot-test\/1471726\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Clearly Not Satisfied&#8221;: McDonald&#8217;s Winds Down IBM&#8217;s Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">&#8220;Clearly Not Satisfied&#8221;: McDonald&#8217;s Winds Down IBM&#8217;s Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>&#8220;McDonald&#8217;s essentially told operators that drive-thru AI is in its future. But it is clearly not satisfied with the one it has been testing,&#8221;\u00a0Jonathan Maze, editor-in-chief of Restaurant Business, wrote on X at the end of last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maze penned a note in\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/technology\/mcdonalds-ending-its-drive-thru-ai-test\">Restaurant Business<\/a><\/em> that revealed\u00a0McDonald&#8217;s is winding down its two-year\u00a0artificial intelligence pilot test with an IBM chatbot at more than\u00a0100 restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending this test without any sort of expansion, according to an email sent to franchisees on Thursday. Restaurant Business has obtained a copy of that email.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But the company did not dismiss the prospect of drive-thru AI, suggesting that McDonald&#8217;s plans to find a new partner for its automated order taking efforts. -Maze<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this is why\u00a0McDonald&#8217;s is ending the IBM\u00a0AI drive-thru ordering partnership by the end of July&#8230;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wow, some big tech news &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24mcd&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">$mcd<\/a> has ended their relationship with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24IBM&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">$IBM<\/a> with our AOT program, automated order taking (I waited to tweet this until made public).<\/p>\n<p>If you follow the thread below, it gives you all the deets from that past 5 years. We sold McD Tech Labs to IBM a few\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JR8QHQN0Vb\">https:\/\/t.co\/JR8QHQN0Vb<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eLi7AP7nuc\">pic.twitter.com\/eLi7AP7nuc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 McFranchisee (@McFranchisee) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/McFranchisee\/status\/1801706933264457831?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 14, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@themadivlog?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"@themadivlog\" rel=\"noopener\">@themadivlog<\/a> How did I end up a butter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"fyp\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/music\/The-Office-6819255229129689090?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\u266c The Office - The Hyphenate\" rel=\"noopener\">\u266c The Office &#8211; The Hyphenate<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@typical_redhead_?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"@typical_redhead_\" rel=\"noopener\">@typical_redhead_<\/a> I thought TikTok would appreciate this \ud83d\udc80 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/fyp?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"fyp\" rel=\"noopener\">#fyp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/foryou?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"foryou\" rel=\"noopener\">#foryou<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/foryoupage?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"foryoupage\" rel=\"noopener\">#foryoupage<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/comedy?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"comedy\" rel=\"noopener\">#comedy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/tag\/fail?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"fail\" rel=\"noopener\">#fail<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/music\/Monkeys-Spinning-Monkeys-6746993352891189249?refer=embed\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\u266c Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod &amp; Kevin The Monkey\" rel=\"noopener\">\u266c Monkeys Spinning Monkeys &#8211; Kevin MacLeod &amp; Kevin The Monkey<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly,&#8221; Mason Smoot, chief restaurant officer for McDonald&#8217;s USA, wrote in a message to operators, obtained by\u00a0Restaurant Business.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smoot said,\u00a0&#8220;After a thoughtful review, McDonald&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He noted that the fast food chain will have &#8220;an\u00a0informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McDonald&#8217;s explained to\u00a0Restaurant Business that its pilot test was to\u00a0determine if chatbots could speed up drive-thru times:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As we move forward, our work with IBM has given us the confidence that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants&#8217; future.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We see tremendous opportunity in advancing our restaurant technology and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable solutions that will help us make an informed decision on a future voice ordering solution by the end of the year.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In December, McDonald&#8217;s announced a partnership with Google to deploy generative AI.<\/p>\n<p>So, will a much wider rollout of the chatbots include Google AI technology?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Mon, 06\/17\/2024 &#8211; 20:00<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/clearly-not-satisfied-mcdonalds-winds-down-ibms-drive-thru-ai-chatbot\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/clearly-not-satisfied-mcdonalds-winds-down-ibms-drive-thru-ai-chatbot<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Clearly Not Satisfied&#8221;: McDonald&#8217;s Winds Down IBM&#8217;s Drive-Thru AI Chatbot Test &#8220;McDonald&#8217;s essentially told operators that drive-thru AI is in its future. But it is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}