The agreement will see McDonald’s further accelerate the development and deployment of its Automated Order Taking (AOT) technology.
In the under agreement, IBM, a leader in AI for business and AI-powered customer care, will acquire McD Tech Labs, which was created to advance employee and customer facing innovations following McDonald’s 2019 acquisition of Apprente. As part of McDonald’s strategic growth plan, “Accelerating the Arches,” the company is committed to innovation across Digital, Delivery and Drive Thru. This agreement will accelerate McDonald’s efforts to provide an even more convenient and unique customer and crew experience.
McDonald’s development and testing of AOT technology in restaurants has shown substantial benefits to customers and the restaurant crew experience. Moving forward, IBM’s expertise in building customer care solutions with AI and natural language processing will help scale the AOT technology across markets and tackle integrations including additional languages, dialects and menu variations.
The acquisition of McD Tech Labs will complement IBM’s existing work to develop and deliver AI-driven customer care solutions with IBM Watson. Businesses across industries from financial services and healthcare to telecommunications and retail are using Watson to drive business outcomes.
