McDonald’s Will Start Using AI in Drive-Through To ‘Improve Customer Experience’

Since we’re set to ‘smart up’ pretty much everything in our lives, from clothing to musical instruments, it’s only natural for the fast food industry to want a piece of the pie.

The most well-known name on the market is, of course, McDonald’s, that decided to acquire machine learning startup Dynamic Yield for $300 million and will be using it, initially, to tweak up the drive-through window.

The system will analyze data about the weather, traffic, historical sales and your current orders, so it can add suggestions of other products you might enjoy. For example, if it’s very hot outside that day, it might suggest you to give ice creams or iced coffees a shot.

“Technology is a critical element of our Velocity Growth Plan, enhancing the experience for our customers by providing greater convenience on their terms,” Steve Easterbrook, President and Chief Executive Officer for the McDonald’s Corporation has said in a press release “With this acquisition, we’re expanding both our ability to increase the role technology and data will play in our future and the speed with which we’ll be able to implement our vision of creating more personalised experiences for our customers.”

The A.I. has already been tested last year at a number of McDonald’s restaurants and it looks like the system worked well enough, considering the company wants now to extend to all of its 14,000 restaurants in the U.S.