A partnership between IBM and Mc Donalds aimed at developing robots to take customers’ orders at the latter’s drive-thru restaurants has advanced to the next phase.
Earlier this year Mc Donalds began testing an automated order-taking service at a few drive-thru restaurants in Chicago. McD Tech Lab, the research and development wing of McDonald pioneered the research until it was sold to IBM in October, leading to a partnership.
“In my mind, IBM is the ideal partner for McDonald’s, given their expertise in building AI-powered customer care solutions and voice recognition,” Pop Culture quoted McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski as saying in a statement published by CNBC.
Read More: According To New Study, US Vaccine Numbers May Be Overrated
Kempczinski noted that partnership with IBM was important because the next stage of the development is “beyond the scale of our core competencies.”
Addressing concerns about the use of artificial intelligence which some people are concerned that would involve collecting and storing customers’ data, the firms said it would use artificial intelligence responsibly “by embedding ethical principles into AI applications and processes to build systems based on trust and transparency.”
Some people fear that McDonald’s bid to automate the jobs in its restaurants could result in massive job losses.