IBM’s addition of NLP to McDonald’s AI-powered drive-thru chatbots will soon come to many stores in the US

In June 2021, around 10 Mcshacks in Chicago had already piloted the automated ordering system

The big blue IBM has recently made an announcement that it will be now releasing its natural language processing solution to McDonald’s drive-thrus. The announcement comes just a few months after the company's acquisition of automated order technology from McDonald’s, along with the group behind the innovation. Back in 2021, IBM had already added some NLP features to its blockbuster Watson Discovery, and now McDonald’s is all set to reap the benefits of the same.

Around October last year, IBM acquired McD Tech Labs, which itself was created when the popular fast-food chain had acquired Apprente in 2019. In June 2021, around 10 Mcshacks in Chicago had already piloted the automated ordering system. We must note that only 1 in 5 orders needed human intervention while users made orders through drive-thru bots powered by AI. Senior VP of IBM Global Markets, Rob Thomas, had stated that the big blue took over a business that McD was struggling with when it came to ordering. He furthermore stated that IBM had built a thesis around AOT, and we could soon make use of NLP to augment the technology of McD. It is worth noting that IBM is rolling out the latest solution to many stores in full swing.