From Engadget.com (Mar. 26):
When you roll up to a McDonald's drive-thru in the near future, you might notice the menu changing while you're ordering to persuade you to buy a few more items. The fast food giant is buying machine learning startup Dynamic Yield for a reported $300 million, and the first stop for the company's AI is the drive-thru window.
The system will look at factors such as the weather, time, local events, traffic levels at the restaurant and on nearby roads, historical sales data, currently popular items and even what you're ordering to optimize menu displays at drive-thru windows. It might, for instance, promote the McFlurry or iced coffees on hot days, or suggest simpler items that are faster for employees to prepare if there's a long line.
McDonald's tested the AI at several restaurants last year, and executive vice president and global chief information officer Daniel Henry told Wired he expects more than 1,000 locations will be using it within the next three months. The system will ultimately reach all 14,000 US restaurants and expand to other markets. McDonald's also plans to add the AI to self-order kiosks and its mobile app, and perhaps other parts of its business, such as kitchens. [read more]
This almost falls into the category of “what-else-is-knew?” I suppose eventually the AI menu will just learn what a customer likes at a certain time of day via facial recognition. “Hello, Bob. Are you going to order a medium fry, a Big Mac and a large Coke today?” Hopefully, the AI won’t just make the order for you without asking. Customers won’t like that. Well, most won’t.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment