McDonald's ended its AI drive-thru test with IBM in July 2024. The likely reason was accuracy, not viral clips. Here is the timeline, the numbers, what rivals found, and the lesson for small businesses.
McDonald's ended its AI drive-thru test with IBM because the system was not accurate enough. An analyst, BTIG's Peter Saleh, estimated from franchisee checks that accuracy sat in the low-to-mid 80% range, while he said it needed to be above 95%. McDonald's never published its own number, but it did not give up on AI: it moved to Google and began a new pilot in 2026.
Video: “Why Did McDonald's Give Up on AI Drive-Thrus?” by Dooza on YouTube (@thedooza), published October 16, 2026. Narrated by an AI voice with AI illustrations; sources below. Watch on YouTube.
The project ran for about five years. Here are the main dates.
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | McDonald's buys voice-AI startup Apprente and folds it into McD Tech Labs | Voicebot.ai |
| 2021 | A pilot in about 10 Chicago-area drive-thrus. CEO Chris Kempczinski put accuracy near 85%, with about 1 in 5 orders still needing a human (outlets date this differently) | Voicebot.ai |
| Oct 27, 2021 | IBM agrees to acquire McD Tech Labs and partner with McDonald's | Voicebot.ai |
| Dec 2023 | McDonald's announces a multi-year Google Cloud partnership | NBC News |
| Jun 17, 2024 | A memo reports the IBM test in more than 100 restaurants is ending | NBC News |
| Jul 26, 2024 | Deadline for the systems to be removed | NBC News |
| Jun 2026 | A new voice assistant, nicknamed Archy, is piloted in 5 US restaurants | PYMNTS |
A drive-thru is a bad place for speech recognition. There is engine noise, wind and a speaker that is often poor. Accents vary, and people change their minds mid-sentence. A Forrester analyst named accents and noise as problems in a 2023 report.
Cars often hold several people, and they talk over each other. One viral case showed the system hearing orders from another lane. A customer ended up with nine sweet teas added, as Chowhound reported. Each of these errors is small. In a fast line, one wrong item still means a person has to fix it.
The 2024 clips were real, and they were funny. They included the nine sweet teas, bacon on ice cream and stacked McNugget orders. They were social-media clips, though, and the dollar amounts in them vary by outlet.
The most repeated story is the 260 McNuggets order. That one comes from a different case. It was a single customer's account from 2025, when kids tested a newer AI, according to Chowhound. It did not come from the 2024 IBM clips.
Two other claims have no source behind them. The memo does not say TikTok caused the shutdown. And nothing links the shutdown to California's $20 fast-food minimum wage, which started on April 1, 2024. The test ended about two and a half months later. The timing is close, but we found no source for a link, so we do not claim one.
McDonald's never published an accuracy number. The best figure comes from an analyst. After talking to franchisees, BTIG's Peter Saleh estimated accuracy in the low-to-mid 80% range. He said the system would need 95% or more to be viable, and he called accuracy "the most important thing right now." The source is NBC News.
The memo itself was polite:
"While there have been successes to date, we feel there is an opportunity to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly."
That quote comes from the memo as reported by NBC News. The memo also said IBM "remains a trusted partner."
Here is why the gap matters. At 85%, about 15 orders in 100 need a person to step in. At 95%, it is about 5 in 100. If a worker must watch the screen anyway, the labor saving shrinks. The stakes are high because the drive-thru is roughly 70% of McDonald's US sales, per PYMNTS. That share varies by source and year. This is our reading of the numbers, and McDonald's has not confirmed its reasons.
The pattern is the same everywhere. Voice AI handles most orders and fails on the rest. The chains that do well plan for the rest.
It never quit AI. Six months before the memo, McDonald's had already announced its Google Cloud partnership. In June 2026, at its worldwide convention, it showed a new voice assistant nicknamed Archy. It was piloted in five US restaurants, in English and Spanish, and it recognizes a customer's usual order. Details are in PYMNTS.
One franchisee posted on X that the system had handled more than 1 million orders. McDonald's has not confirmed that claim, so treat it as unverified. The story is a change of vendor and design, not an exit from AI.
This is our own takeaway, not a sourced fact. Give AI a narrow job. A drive-thru is open-ended, noisy and fast, and every small error shows. A task like drafting emails, sorting a shared inbox or updating a spreadsheet is much easier to get right.
Then add a human checking its work. Taco Bell's tech chief said humans stay in the loop. The Presto case shows the other lesson: be honest about what is automated and what is not.
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McDonald's never gave a number. BTIG analyst Peter Saleh estimated from franchisee checks that accuracy was in the low-to-mid 80% range, against the 95%+ he said was needed. Staff still had to step in, so the benefit was small. The memo only said the company wanted to explore voice ordering solutions more broadly.
A memo reported on June 17, 2024 said the test, in more than 100 US restaurants, had to end by July 26, 2024.
No. It announced a Google Cloud partnership in December 2023 and, in June 2026, piloted a new voice assistant nicknamed Archy in five US restaurants.
No. The 260 McNuggets story is a 2025 single-customer account. It is not from the 2024 IBM clips, and the memo does not mention any viral video.
Give AI a narrow job with a clear right answer, and have a person check its work. Track how often the person has to fix it before you rely on it.
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