Wendy’s vs. McDonald’s: The AI Drive-Thru Reckoning
Why One QSR Scaled Voice AI and the Other Hit the Brakes
By Carsten Krause
January 9, 2026
The Drive-Thru Is the Front Line of AI Reality
In theory, voice AI at the drive-thru should be a no-brainer. The environment is repetitive. The menu is constrained. The business case is obvious: faster throughput, better accuracy, lower labor pressure, higher upsell rates. And yet, when AI leaves the lab and meets real customers, real accents, real noise, and real impatience, the results can be brutal.
Over the last two years, the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry has become an unintentional proving ground for Elevated Collaborative Intelligence™ where Human Intelligence (HI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) must work together, at scale, under pressure.
Two of the world’s most recognizable brands took very different paths.
- Wendy’s pushed forward, iterated, governed tightly, and scaled its FreshAI voice ordering system.
- McDonald’s paused and ended its automated order-taking pilot with IBM after real-world performance fell short.
This is not a story of winners and losers. It is a case study in how AI succeeds or fails when it collides with operational reality.
Wendy’s FreshAI: From Pilot to Platform
Wendy’s approach to voice AI was notably unflashy. No grand declarations about replacing staff. No “lights-out drive-thru” fantasies. Instead, the company treated AI as a co-pilot, not a replacement.
What Wendy’s Actually Deployed
Wendy’s FreshAI was built in partnership with Google Cloud, leveraging large language models optimized for conversational ordering rather than open-ended chat. The system was designed to:
- Handle natural speech patterns, pauses, and corrections
- Understand complex customizations (“no pickles, extra onion, but only on one sandwich”)
- Integrate dynamically with digital menu boards
- Support multilingual ordering
- Hand off to a human instantly when confidence thresholds dropped
This last point matters more than most executives realize.
Scaling With Guardrails
Instead of declaring victory after early pilots, Wendy’s defined success metrics that went beyond demo-ware on the AI pilot graveyard:
- Order accuracy vs. human baseline
- Average handle time
- Percentage of orders completed without human intervention
- Escalation frequency
- Customer satisfaction scores
By mid-2025, Wendy’s publicly confirmed plans to deploy FreshAI across hundreds of drive-thrus, with ongoing expansion into 2026, citing improvements in both speed and consistency. The company emphasized that AI was augmenting crew members, not removing them.
At the same time Wendy’s has been expanding its FreshAI voice ordering initiative, the company has also been quietly closing a number of underperforming restaurant locations. This is not a contradiction, but it’s a signal. In an environment of rising labor costs, uneven traffic patterns, and margin pressure, Wendys is tightening its footprint while doubling down on operational leverage where it actually works. AI, in this context, isn’t a lifeline for weak locations, but it’s an accelerator for strong ones.
Source:
https://www.wendys.com/blog/transforming-ordering-experience-wendys-freshai-update
McDonald’s and IBM: A Necessary Reset, Not a Failure
McDonald’s experiment with automated order-taking was developed with IBM. It was ambitious and highly visible. Deployed in roughly 100 locations, the pilot aimed to test whether voice AI could reliably replace a human order taker in one of the noisiest environments in retail.
It didn’t.
Why the Pilot Stopped
In mid-2024, McDonald’s confirmed it would end the specific IBM voice ordering test. The reasons were pragmatic, not ideological:
- Difficulty handling accents and regional speech variations
- Struggles with background noise
- Edge cases during peak rushes
- Inconsistent accuracy across locations
McDonald’s leadership was careful to clarify that voice ordering remains part of its long-term vision, but that this implementation was not yet ready for scale.
Source:
https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/mcdonalds-ibm-drive-thru-automation-voice-ordering-ai/719085/
This was not an AI rejection. It was a governance decision and a reset.
The Real Difference: Elevated Collaborative Intelligence™
The contrast between Wendy’s and McDonald’s highlights a pattern I see repeatedly across industries: AI fails when organizations chase autonomy before mastering collaboration.
Wendy’s Got the Formula Right
Using my HI + AI × T − R = ECI™ framework:
- HI (Human Intelligence): Crew members remain active supervisors, with clear override authority
- AI: Narrowly scoped, domain-trained models optimized for ordering—not general conversation
- T (Technology Readiness): Integrated POS, menu boards, telemetry, and real-time monitoring
- R (Risk): Managed through fallback, escalation, and continuous tuning
McDonald’s pilot, by contrast, exposed what happens when risk and variance outpace readiness.
That distinction between acceleration and rescue is where many AI initiatives go wrong.
Voice AI Is Not a Chatbot Problem. It’s an Operations Problem
Many executives still frame voice AI as a “model accuracy” issue. That’s a mistake.
In real environments, success depends on:
- Acoustic engineering
- Workflow integration
- Staff training
- Exception handling
- Governance thresholds
- Real-time observability
The model is only one variable.
This is why Wendy’s emphasized confidence-based handoff instead of forcing AI to complete every order. Humans are not a backup plan. They are part of the system.
What CIOs, CDOs, and COOs Should Learn from this
The QSR industry is simply the most visible version of a challenge playing out everywhere—from contact centers to supply chains to finance.
Five Lessons That Transfer Directly to the Enterprise
- Pilot Scope Is Strategy
Overly broad pilots fail. Up to 88% never make it to production (McKinsey). Narrow, high-value use cases scale. - Human-in-the-Loop Is Not a Phase
It is a permanent design principle as pointed out in various research studies like HBR’s agentic teammate. - Define Escalation Before Deployment
AI without a graceful failure mode becomes a brand risk. - Measure What Matters
Accuracy alone is insufficient. Measure confidence, handoffs, and customer impact. - Governance Is a Competitive Advantage
Companies that operationalize AI governance move faster, not slower.
Why “Ending a Pilot” Can Be the Smartest AI Decision
McDonald’s decision to pause should be viewed as maturity, not retreat. Too many organizations double down on underperforming AI systems because leadership fears optics.
The smarter move is to reset, re-architect, and return stronger.
Wendy’s success was not about better algorithms. It was about better alignment between people, process, and technology.
The CDO TIMES Bottom Line
Voice AI at the drive-thru didn’t fail. Poorly governed AI failed.
Wendy’s demonstrated what happens when organizations treat AI as part of a collaborative operating model, not a silver bullet. McDonald’s demonstrated the courage required to stop, learn, and recalibrate when reality doesn’t match the slide deck.
For executives navigating AI transformation in 2026, the lesson is clear:
Elevated Collaborative Intelligence™ not raw automation is what scales.
If your AI strategy assumes humans are the problem, your rollout will become one. If your strategy designs humans as partners, supervisors, and governors of AI, you build systems that survive contact with reality.
To go deeper on governance frameworks, operating models, and readiness assessments behind HI + AI = ECI™, explore additional executive-only research and tools available to CDO TIMES Unlimited Access members at cdotimes.com.
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