McDonald’s acquires A.I. company to help automate the drive-thru, its third tech deal this year
McDonald’s acquires A.I. company to
help automate the drive-thru, its third tech deal this year
KEY
POINTS
- McDonald’s has agreed to acquire
Apprente, which uses artificial intelligence to understand speech.
- The technology will be used in its
drive-thrus and could be used in its self-order kiosks and mobile app.
- Earlier this year, McDonald’s
bought Dynamic Yield and took a minority stake in mobile app vendor
Plexure.
said Tuesday it has agreed to
acquire a company that is trying to automate the drive-thru. It’s the fast-food
giant’s third tech-focused deal this year.
Apprente, a
Silicon Valley company founded in 2017, uses artificial intelligence to
understand drive-thru orders, which could cut down on service times. McDonald’s
said the technology also could be used someday in its self-order kiosks and
mobile app.
The
Chicago-based company said it evaluated Apprente’s technology in McDonald’s
test restaurants.
Apprente’s
employees will be the founding members of a group called McD Tech Labs, which
will be housed within McDonald’s global technology team. The burger chain wants
to grow its presence in Silicon Valley by hiring more tech experts, including
engineers and data scientists.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The chain
has been using technology to stay ahead of the competition. In March,
McDonald’s announced the acquisition of Dynamic
Yield, which specializes in personalization and decision logic
technology. People familiar with the matter said the deal was worth more than
$300 million, making it McDonald’s largest deal in two decades.
After
closing the Dynamic Yield acquisition, McDonald’s quickly deployed its machine
learning tech in more than 8,000 U.S. drive-thrus. The technology changes
drive-thru menus based on the time of day, weather, traffic and the customer’s
order — all to coax the customer to spend more. By the end of 2019, the burger
chain wants to integrate Dynamic Yield’s technology into almost all U.S. and
Australian drive-thrus.
McDonald’s
also took a minority stake in Plexure, a mobile app vendor.
The chain
is also in the middle of renovating its U.S. stores with digital menu boards,
self-order kiosks and other tech upgrades. CEO Steve Easterbrook told analysts
on the second quarter conference call that the kiosks have been generating
higher average checks in the U.S.
McDonald’s
stock, which has a market value of $167 billion, is up 22% this year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/mcdonalds-acquires-ai-company-trying-to-automate-the-drive-thru.html
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