McDonald's brought back its drive-thru AI. It got one order in five wrong.
McDonald's is again testing voice AI at a handful of US drive-thrus, CIO.com reported.
The platform is called ArchIQ, with an assistant named Archy.
The company tested an earlier version at about 100 US restaurants from 2021, then shut it down in the summer of 2024. CIO.com reports that the system took orders correctly 81% of the time on its own. That rose to 95% once an employee stepped in.
Operating cost ended the first test. CIO.com reports that the system had to be cheaper than a person at the counter, and it failed to offset operating costs. Drive-thru is about 70% of the company's US business.
That 81% success rate excludes the staff minutes spent fixing every other order. Those minutes are the labour the system was bought to remove.
McDonald's declined to comment when the first system was switched off. Chief executive Chris Kempczinski has raised concerns that restaurant managers are already overwhelmed. The relaunch was announced at a convention in Las Vegas in June 2026.
Do you measure cost per completed task for your own agents, including retries and human review, or only the model's success rate?
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