McDonald's testing AI drive-thru order-taking system called ArchIQ at five locations across country
The initiative is part of a new brand strategy called McDonald's NEXT, announced by CEO Chris Kempczinski this week
Ed Rensi on Yum! Brands Habit Burger acquisition and McDonald's culture change
McDonald's customers may soon be giving their order to a robot.
The fast food company is testing a new artificial intellience order-taking system at the drive-thru called ArchIQ at five locations across the country right now, according to Restaurant Business Magazine.
The initiative is part of the company's new brand strategy called McDonald’s Next, which was announced this week.
FOX Business has reached out to McDonald's for comment.
MCDONALD'S UNVEILS NEW GROWTH STRATEGY TO WIN BACK CUSTOMERS
McDonald's is testing a new A.I. order-taking system at the drive-thru. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
While introducing McDonald’s NEXT earlier this week, CEO Chris Kempczinski said that customers shouldn't have to choose between "hospitality or speed."
McFranchisee, an X account for a McDonald's franchise, said this week that Google is affiliated with the new project.
"Meet Archy IQ - no, we are not new to AOT. In fact, we have been in this AI field for about 8 years," McFranchisee wrote on X on Tuesday.
MCDONALD’S AI HIRING CHATBOT EXPOSED DATA OF JOB CANDIDATES
"We sold our in-house model to IBM and moved on as it wasn’t good enough for our needs. As mentioned below, I wanted to hire Google (who uses NVIDIA) to service our AOT 3 years ago and found out today that Google is behind this project. We are currently in 5 test stores, having processed over 1M transactions with about 90% of orders completed without human escalations. Impressive for a new test."
A woman works in a McDonalds in Manhattan on January 05, 2024 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images / Getty Images)
McFranchisee said that every McDonald's in the country will get Google Edge Cloud blades installed ahead of the rollout.
"Archy will not only assist drive-thru orders but act as a master brain to help managers run a better restaurant," it added. "It’s like a personal assistant that alerts you to potential bottlenecks or issues."
Most of the comments under the X post were negative.
"We all hate the system installed at Wendy's," one person wrote. "We hate the kiosks at McDonald's, Wendy's, and Taco Bell that we are asked to use instead of talking to a person. We will hate this too. Say goodbye to customers."
The McDonald's logo is displayed at a McDonald's restaurant on July 22, 2024 in Burbank, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images / Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
"No one wants this - we like dealing with smiling faces," another said, to which McFranchisee replied, "We still smile at the cash and present window - this is just at the speaker."
The new A.I. initiative comes two years after McDonald's dropped another similar effort.