The next time you pull up to a McDonald's drive-thru, the voice taking your order may not be human.McDonald’s is testing a new AI-powered system called ArchIQ at five U.S.
locations.The company has not said where those restaurants are located.
The voice assistant, nicknamed Archy, can take drive-thru orders and has shown it can handle both English and Spanish.For anyone who has repeated "no pickles" into a speaker box more than once, this could sound helpful.However, if you remember McDonald’s last AI drive-thru experiment, you may also wonder whether your burger order could somehow turn into a bag full of surprise McNuggets.Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportPlus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide free when you join.WOULD YOU EAT AT A RESTAURANT RUN BY AI? McDonald’s is testing an AI drive-thru system called ArchIQ at five U.S.
restaurants.(Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)ArchIQ is McDonald's new AI system for restaurants.
It can take drive-thru orders and also help with operations behind the scenes.In a post on X, McFranchisee, an anonymous McDonald's franchisee account, said the system is currently in five test stores and has processed more than one million transactions.The account also said about 90% of orders were completed without a human stepping in.
That number sounds promising.Still, McDonald's has not confirmed a nationwide launch date.
For now, this remains a limited test.The system also appears to connect with a bigger McDonald's plan called "McDonald's > NEXT." CEO Chris Kempczinski described the strategy as a way to bring in more customers and improve restaurant productivity.The plan also includes menu changes, restaurant redesigns, technology upgrades and more focus on hospitality.Drive-thrus can get chaotic fast.
Someone changes an order after the total appears.A child calls out from the back seat.
Road noise makes the speaker hard to hear.Then the driver remembers the extra sauce after everything has already go...