McDonald's AI drive-in malfunction leaves customer with unwanted items

A McDonald's customer has shared how ordering via the restaurant's AI-assisted drive thru didn't go exactly to plan when it malfunctioned and added unwanted items to her total.

Ren Adams (@resinbiren) acknowledged that "robots are taking over the world," in her TikTok but it seems they're still a working progress.

"So y'all know how it's 2023 and robots are like taking over the world so anyway this morning I tried to go to McDonald's and get my daily dose of caffeine and some breakfast I was gonna get a hash brown a sweet tea and a coke. So I order, and I'm at the first drive-thru line, and as I order, and they're giving me my total, a car pulls up to the second drive-thru line," she explained.

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"Mind you at this McDonald's it's all robot. Like we're talking to a robot, like there's no person on this speaker, it's just a robot taking your order so she adds the diet coke from the next line to my screen."

When it came to correcting the robot's mistake, another error was made when it instead added nine sweet teas that Adams never asked for.

"So tell me why when I tell her, this robot, that I have no diet coke for some reason she took the diet coke off and made it nine sweet teas. Nine! I did not ask for this. I saw this s**t and I pulled out of the drive-thru and drove away I said f**k that."

Since sharing her experience with the McDonald's AI drive thru, it has received over 121,000 views as people have also commented with similar stories and believe that ordering from a person is better.

One person wrote: "This happened to me my total went from 3 something to 10 something be as I was driving to the window it was adding the other person's to mine."

"If everyone orders 10 complicated meals, then drives away for like a week, the automation would end real fast," another person said.

Someone else added: "And this is exactly why a person should take your order. We all know when we talk to computerized ppl even on the phone we gotta scream at our phone just for them to hear us correctly."

"My mom ordered two happy meals for my siblings, it decided to try and give her 30, and she had to sit there and fight it," a fourth person commented.

Meanwhile, others recommended ordering through the McDonald's app so that Adams gets the correct order in future.

One person said: "I just order on apps now. Can’t misunderstand me if it’s all electronic in the first place."

"This is why I just order on the app," another agreed.

A third added: "This happens to me when it’s a person taking my order."

Indy100 has contacted McDonald's for comment.

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