McDonald's, one of the largest fast food chains in the world, spent hundreds of millions of dollars this year to make acquisitions in the technology sector, gaining control of companies and startups that are mainly involved in artificial intelligence. The company is thus confident of relaunching its sales, especially in the United States where it struggled in the last quarter, also due to growing competition from restaurants that sell their dishes through home delivery applications.
In the third quarter of this year, McDonald's generated revenues of $ 5.43 billion, against the $ 5.49 billion forecast by analysts. Sales at its restaurants in the United States increased by 4.8 percent, but a 5.2 percent increase was expected. Things fared slightly better in the rest of the world, where sales fell short of expectations by only 0.2 percent, reaching +5.9 percent. The results caused the shares on the stock exchange to lose value, which in a few days went from $ 210 to just under $ 200. he is working on will help increase sales.
In Silicon Valley, McDonald's has opened McD Tech Labs, laboratories that will have the task of studying and developing new solutions to incentivize customers to order richer. Artificial intelligence systems to manage menus and anticipate customer wishes should lead to higher revenues. Some innovations have already been applied to McDrive, the service for ordering and collecting burgers, fries and the rest without leaving your car (in the United States it is called Drive Thru like other similar services).
In many US restaurants, McDrives are now equipped with large screens showing different menus depending on the time of day and weather conditions. In the morning the dishes for breakfast are preferred, while in the afternoon those for less demanding snacks. If it is cold, hot drinks are shown more frequently, while on hot days soft drinks and ice creams are highlighted. At the end of a purchase, the screens also show suggestions for other dishes to buy, highlighting any promotional offers to entice customers to extend their orders.
Part of this system is also used in McDonald's restaurants equipped with automatic checkouts, where customers can order products directly by choosing them on large touchscreen panels. The screens often show offers and products to add, to enrich your menus, with various tricks to induce you to make more purchases.
In some US McDrives, McDonald's has started experimenting with a system that reads the customer's car license plate, in order to present him with a personalized menu based on his previous orders. The function is not active by default, and each customer can decide whether or not to be part of the initiative.
These measures have already led to some results, at least according to what McDonald's communicated last July, during the presentation of the previous quarterly data. The company hopes to extend them to all McDrives in the United States, with a view to doing the same in the rest of the world (McDrives are not as successful in all countries as they are in the US market).
As the New York Times recalls, last March McDonald's spent about $ 300 million on the acquisition of Dynamic Yield, an Israeli company that developed many of the algorithms now used in McDrives. In September, McDonald's acquired Apprente, a Californian startup that develops voice recognition systems in multiple languages, useful for automating the ordering of products at the checkout. McDonald's had already partnered with the company, testing its systems in a few restaurants, for a pilot project that will likely be extended in the coming months.
The prospect of a progressive automation of fast food restaurants does not leave the workers calm, starting with those of McDonald's, who in the United States do not always receive adequate remuneration. Some employees earn less than $ 10 an hour, a figure that has been stuck for several years, despite the fact that the company has continued to generate large revenues in the meantime. The fear of workers is that automatic checkouts, voice recognition systems and other technological solutions make their role increasingly marginal, to the point where McDonald's restaurants will be able to operate with very few staff. The company rejects these criticisms by explaining that employees will be redeployed to other positions, but it is not clear how and for how long.
The fast food sector is going through a period of great change, especially in the United States where it has historically been very active and competitive. Other chains, such as Domino's Pizza, have anticipated McDonald's by several years, investing in new technologies to improve their production processes, make them less expensive and offer better services to customers, while encouraging them to consume more.
Domino's has its own innovation lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in addition to testing algorithms to anticipate its customers' needs, it has developed several more or less promising projects. The company is investing in the development of new systems for the automatic delivery of pizzas, with robots. At the beginning of the summer, Domino's signed an agreement with the Californian startup Nuro, co-founded by two former Google employees, which deals with small self-driving vehicles for the transport of goods.
The success of applications for ordering food at home has helped to change the scenarios in catering. Every day apps like Uber Eats collect information on the preferences and consumption of millions of people, precious data to understand their tastes and try to guide their choices. However, this information is in the hands of the application managers and is often not accessible to individual restaurateurs. McDonald's, like other large restaurant chains, has the resources and skills to do it themselves, becoming a kind of restaurant technology company.
