Confirmations are still arriving for those who predict a myriad of jobs in which humans will be replaced by artificial intelligence.
Fast food is starting to be even a little faster and a little less human. McDonald's announced today the acquisition of Apprente, a startup focused on voice technologies.
The aim is as simple as it is ambitious: fully automate the engagement and purchase processes of its McDrive restaurants.
The Mountain View-based company (Google neighbors, hein?) builds "vocal agents" guided by an AI capable of receiving verbal orders with a huge number of different languages, dialects and accents.
The burger giant has recently undergone a quiet testing period at some of the chain's restaurants, and Apprente's technology has enabled faster, easier and more accurate ordering.
A new beginning
Apprente will form the core of the McD Tech laboratories, a technological asset that will design futuristic solutions to be applied to the takeaway food sector.
The declarations of Itamar Arel, the co-founder of Apprente who will now also be vice president of McD Tech Labs. “McDonald's propensity to innovate has always inspired my team. We are determined to ensure that it continues to lead the industry with its technologies. Apprente was created to solve practical real-life problems, and it's great to think about using this approach to create personalized experiences for users.”
Ambitious plans, many resources.
So what will happen to this “McDonaldized” Apprentice? First of all, an expansion of the number of engineers and technicians. Then the expansion of operations into other areas, such as online ordering and electronic kiosks.
Employment effects
It is useful to say but no less obvious, artificial intelligence to manage orders will make life easier for customers, but it will come at a terrible cost for business. And when I say "terrible" I mean that next year electronic kiosks will be introduced in all restaurants in the USA, for starters, with a massacre of cashiers.
McDonald's is pushing decisively on the mechanization pedal: Apprente is the third acquisition of the year. In April the house of Ronald McDonald acquired the Dynamic Yield, a data management startup to optimize menus based on real time parameters such as weather, time of day, customer flow and preferences of the moment.
He later incorporated it plexus, a New Zealand startup specializing in the creation of apps for mobile devices.
There doesn't appear to be any alternatives on the horizon. Regardless of the fact that we know we have to survive in the future by doing all other kinds of jobs, let's get ready to ask for food more or less when we want, in the way we want, almost without human presence.
