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McDonald’s Buys Startup to Add Automated Drive-Thru Ordering
- Company to acquire Apprente as it pushes to improve technology
- Apprente’s Silicon Valley headquarters to serve as tech lab
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
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McDonald’s Corp. is making a bet it can automate the task of taking drive-thru orders.
The world’s biggest restaurant company is buying startup Apprente Inc., a developer of voice-recognition technology for use in the restaurant industry, to help speed up lines. The idea is to eventually have a machine, instead of a person, on the other side of the intercom to relay orders to kitchen staff. In Chicago-area restaurants where the system is already being tested, employees still oversee drive-thru order-taking and can step in when needed.