If your local McDonald’s has been getting your order confidently wrong with an AI chatbot at the drive-thru, I have good news for you: The company is ending the program for now.
The company told franchisees that it’s winding down an AI drive-thru ordering partnership with IBM “no later than July 26th, 2024,” according to trade publication Restaurant Business.
Bloomberg reported that the deal was partly for a chatbot named “Ask Pickles” that employees could use for guidance on things like cleaning ice cream machines.
Even so, Google partnered with Wendy’s, which started testing drive-thru AI based on its tech last year and has since expanded that trial.
And Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and others use an AI drive-through chatbot that an SEC filing revealed was underpinned by remote human workers in the Philippines most of the time.
The company also offers things like mobile ordering and in-store kiosks and has tested drone deliveries, kitchen robots, and weird AI hiring tools.
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