McDonald’s Welcomes Artificial Intelligence in Its Service Through Its Latest Acquisition

McDonald’s will be acquiring Dynamic Yield — an Artificial Intelligence company based partly in New York and Tel Aviv — for $300 million. The acquisition is supposed to provide vast amounts of meaningful data to McDonald’s about what people like to eat at the fast-food giant, which will, in turn, help them personalize customer experience.

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Prior to this acquisition, McDonald’s had tested this technology in several North American outlets… and it worked! The company will continue to roll-out this technology throughout. The data is being/will be collected through the McDonald’s Application, orders from mobile, self-service kiosks, etc.

McDonald’s enthusiasts may not be able to figure out the co-relation between Artificial Intelligence and a double cheeseburger. However, analysts predict that the only reason for the acquisition is increased sales.

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The Health Debate

Sales will increase but will McDonald’s focus on adding more nutrition in the food they serve? Currently, the technology that the company has its hands on will provide data that will increase the top-line for its point-of-purchase. The irony here is that customers that eat at McDonald’s are not there to snack on nutritious foods. Hence, the technology will continue to push the sales of burgers and fries as against fresh salads. In a nutshell, the technology is only making consumers consume more junk food.

On the flipside though, McDonald’s in 2018 promised to supply fresh beef to all its outlets. The same year, the company also claimed to reduce the fat content of its happy meals.

Only time will tell if McDonald’s decision of innovating through data turns out to be beneficial to them. Predictive Analytics, which will be a by-product of the data, will help McDonald’s curb on raw material waste. For now, the company is set to extract some really interesting insights on customer behaviors and their taste preferences.

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