McDonald’s is the latest fast food chain to employ the use of artificial intelligence as it’s reportedly adding AI to 43,000 restaurants to improve efficiency and experience for both customers and employees.

Serving Up the Future

A few of the company’s reported upgrades include internet-connected kitchen appliances, AI-enabled drive-throughs, and AI-powered tools for managers to help predict equipment issues and ensure order accuracy.

“Our restaurants, frankly, can be very stressful,” Brian Rice, McDonald’s Chief Information Officer, said regarding employees who face these issues, The Sun reported.

“We have customers at the counter, we have customers at our drive-through, couriers coming in for delivery, delivery at curbside,” he continued. “That’s a lot to deal with for our crew. Technology solutions will alleviate the stress.”

Suppliers have begun installing sensors on equipment that will provide data to the system and empower employees to monitor restaurant operations in real time. The firm is also considering adding computer vision (the type of AI behind facial recognition) to in-store cameras to determine an order’s accuracy prior to handing it to a customer.

Rice also shared that the company is looking for a  “generative AI virtual manager” that can handle certain administrative tasks such as shift scheduling. The setup, also known as edge computing, will also be able to power voice AI at the drive-through.

The company began working with Google Cloud in late 2023 with the ultimate goal of implementing computing power in restaurants and allowing them to analyze data on-site. They previously partnered with IBM to use AI software to take orders in 2021 but ended the program in 2024 after the technology was used at more than 100 locations.

McDonald’s hopes that the AI upgrades will grow their customer base from 175 million to 250 million by 2027.