Owners
McD Tech Labs - Develops, tests, and deploys an AI-enabled voice system to automate the process of receiving orders. McD Labs uses voice and speech recognition developed by Apprente, this development is designed to understand and communicate with people ordering food at gas stations.
History
2021: IBM bought McD Tech Labs
At the end of October 2021, McDonald's announced the sale of the McD Tech Labs division to IBM. As part of this transaction, the value of which is not disclosed, the companies also began cooperation in the development of an automated autocafe service.
IBM's contribution can accelerate the deployment and upgrade of voice-assisted McDonald's when experiments with this concept begin to spread. Prior to the acquisition, McDonald's collaborated with Apprente to conduct field tests of Automated Ordering Technology (AOT) in one McDonald's. In 2021, McDonald's installed a voice assistant at 10 points of sale in the vicinity of Chicago, its accuracy was only 85%, and every fifth order still required the participation of a person.
The implementation of this system was immediately followed by a class action lawsuit alleging that the voice assistant violated biometric the Illinois Information Privacy Act. McDonald's and IBM, consider that the technology was rather successful to justify joint investments and cooperation in addition of what McD Tech Labs created for work of IBM in the area (artificial intelligence), AI in particular page. Watson AI The companies of various industries from financial services and to health care telecommunications and retail trade use Watson for increase in efficiency of business.
 | The development and testing of technology in restaurants has McDonald's shown significant advantages for customers and restaurant staff. In the future, IBM's expertise in AI customer service solutions and natural language processing will help scale technology across markets and address integration challenges, including additional languages, dialects, and menu options. The acquisition of McD Tech Labs will complement IBM's existing work on developing and implementing AI-based customer service solutions with IBM Watson, IBM and McDonald's said in a joint statement.[1] |  |
Notes
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