McDonald’s is adding generative AI tools to its restaurants

Right now, generative AI is making its way into more corners of our lives, and it’s not stopping any time soon. Along with tech companies, fast-food companies are starting to see the usefulness of generative AI. McDonald’s just announced that it’s going to be implementing generative AI tools into its restaurants.

At the moment, we don’t know 100% what the company is going to do. This news came from a press release. Anyone who weeds through press releases knows to expect both a ton of information and ZERO information. Basically, there are a lot of words, but they don’t explain what the company is going to be doing. For the time being, we know that the biggest fast-food company in the world is teaming up with the biggest search company in the world to make this happen.

McDonald’s teamed up with Google to bring some generative AI tools

Mickey D’s is teaming up with Google, which just announced Gemini, to bring generative AI tools to several McDonald’s restaurants across the world. It will use Google Cloud to boost its establishments. Cloud offers AI-powered hardware and software solutions for companies. So, McDonald’s will be distributing new hardware and software solutions to thousands of its restaurants.

It’s unclear how this will directly affect the overall experience, but McDonald’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer said, “Connecting our restaurants worldwide to millions of datapoints across our digital ecosystem means tools get sharper, models get smarter, restaurants become easier to operate, and most importantly, the overall experience for our customers and crew gets even better.”

So, to get an idea of what the company plans on doing, we’ll have to wait a bit. It’s going to provide its restaurants with these upgrades over the next year, so we most likely won’t see anything materialize for several more months.

We can’t ignore the elephant in the room

Let’s not mince words; AI technology puts a ton of jobs at risk. Artists, writers, musicians, content creators, and other creators are dealing with the stress of becoming obsolete in the near future because of generative AI. With this powerful technology coming to restaurants, especially a place like McDonald’s where many people have their first jobs, we can’t deny that there’s cause to worry a bit.

With AI automation, there’s no telling what fast-food restaurant tasks can be automated for less money than an employee’s salary. As we take more steps into our AI world, it’s likely that we’ll see more companies implement the technology into their services. We’ll just have to wait and see if there’s reason to fear.