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https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-475

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Production AI Institute public record · dailydot.com: McDonald's Reportedly Ends IBM Partnership After AI Drive-Thru Ordering Errors at U.S. Locations · observed 2025-08-14
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dailydot.com: McDonald's Reportedly Ends IBM Partnership After AI Drive-Thru Ordering Errors at U.S. Locations

Between 2021 and mid-2024, McDonald's reportedly piloted an AI-enabled voice ordering system that was developed with IBM and based on its 2019 acquisition of Apprente. It was reportedly deployed at at over 100 U.S. drive-thrus. Social media posts alleged frequent misorders, such as adding unwanted items, mixing adjacent lane orders, and ignoring corrections. In June 2024, McDonald's confirmed it ended the IBM pilot, citing plans to explore alternative voice-AI vendors.

AI Incident Database · Incident 475

Operator lens (medium): inspect D8 (provider fallback).

Confidence
82%
Sources
3
Entities
3
Detected
detected 337d ago

Event summary

Between 2021 and mid-2024, McDonald's reportedly piloted an AI-enabled voice ordering system that was developed with IBM and based on its 2019 acquisition of Apprente. It was reportedly deployed at at over 100 U.S. drive-thrus. Social media posts alleged frequent misorders, such as adding unwanted items, mixing adjacent lane orders, and ignoring corrections. In June 2024, McDonald's confirmed it ended the IBM pilot, citing plans to explore alternative voice-AI vendors.

D8

Linked entities

  • ibm

    organisation | 70%

  • mcdonald's

    organisation | 70%

  • mcdonald's-customers

    organisation | 70%

Related graph edges

EdgeTypeConfidence
ent-aiid-ibm to ent-psf-d8maps to60%
ent-aiid-ibm to ent-psf-d8maps to60%
ent-aiid-ibm to ent-psf-d8maps to60%

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Event dates

  • Happened 2 June 2021

  • Detected 14 Aug 2025

Sources

  • 'This is exactly why a person should take your order': Customer says McDonald's AI accidentally added 9 sweet teas to h…

    secondary | checked 14 Feb 2023

    Open source
  • AI Incident Database - Incident 475

    secondary | checked 9 July 2026

    Open source
  • TikTokers are roasting McDonald's hilarious drive-thru AI order fails — and it shows that robots won't take over restau…

    secondary | checked 14 Feb 2023

    Open source
Cite this record

"dailydot.com: McDonald's Reportedly Ends IBM Partnership After AI Drive-Thru Ordering Errors at U.S. Locations." https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-475 (observed 2021-06-02; retrieved 2026-07-17). PAI.

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