The Daily Populous Tuesday June 18th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by bbc.co.uk and submitted by diacewrb

McDonald's is removing artificial intelligence (AI) powered ordering technology from its drive-through restaurants in the US, after customers shared its comical mishaps online.

A trial of the system, which was developed by IBM and uses voice recognition software to process orders, was announced in 2019.

It has not proved entirely reliable, however, resulting in viral videos of bizarre misinterpreted orders ranging from bacon-topped ice cream to hundreds of dollars' worth of chicken nuggets.

McDonald's told franchisees it would remove the tech from the more than 100 restaurants it has been testing it in by the end of July, as first reported by trade publication Restaurant Business, external.

"After thoughtful review, McDonald's has decided to end our current global partnership with IBM on AOT [Automated Order Taking] beyond this year," the restaurant chain said in a statement.

However, it added it remained confident the tech would still be "part of its restaurants’ future."

otter111a on June 18th, 2024 at 14:31 UTC »

I speak clearly. Alexa misinterprets what I say to it constantly. Inside my house. No significant background noise.

Now compare that to a drive through.

VritraReiRei on June 18th, 2024 at 13:48 UTC »

Holy Hell, I thought the title was also written by an AI 😂

Borkz on June 18th, 2024 at 13:45 UTC »

How did they roll this out to 100+ stores? Did anybody even test it before doing so?