According to recent media reports, McDonald's is about to end the AI drive-free food ordering pilot project with IBM. This decision marks the end of the two-year cooperation between the two sides.

At present, McDonald's has tested IBM's chatbot technology in more than 100 stores to improve the efficiency of the no-drop off service. However, according to an email sent by McDonald's to its franchisee, the company plans to stop this AI ordering project and find new partners to develop and promote AI voice ordering technology.

Mason Smoot, McDonald's US Chief Restaurant Officer, said in a message to operators: “Although our partnership with IBM has had some success, we think there is a greater opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions.”

He further indicated that McDonald's will shut down all IBM technology currently being tested by July 26, 2024, and plans to make decisions about future voice ordering solutions before the end of this year.

McDonald's revealed to the media that the purpose of the pilot project is to test whether chatbots can speed up drive-free services. The collaboration with IBM has strengthened their confidence in drive-free voice ordering solutions, and will continue to evaluate long-term, scalable technical solutions.

Additionally, McDonald's announced a partnership with Google in December of last year to jointly deploy generative AI technology. This collaboration has sparked widespread speculation in the industry that McDonald's may use Google's AI technology in the future.