McDonald's has entered into a strategic partnership with IBM in an effort to accelerate the development of automated drive-thru lanes.Under the agreement, IBM will acquire McD Tech Labs, which has been working to develop, test and deploy an automated ordering system using artificial intelligence-enabled voice recognition.
McD Tech Labs was created following the fast food chain's acquisition of Apprente in 2019. The transaction is expected to close in December, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.