Retail technology innovation of the week: McDonald’s taps cloud technology and AI solutions
Retail Technology Innovation of the Week is a new series brought to you by RTIH and sponsored by 3D Cloud by Marxent, highlighting stand out deployments, launches, and initiatives by retailers and tech suppliers.
Every week, we will showcase forward thinking tech plays that have impressed our Editor and the Retail Technology Innovations Report judging panel, in the run up to the publication of the 2024 report early next year.
So far, we’ve showcased work being done by Ocado Retail, Decathlon, Lacoste, Downtown Spirits, TalkShopLive, Huck’s, Rovertown, Wing, McDonald’s, Nobody’s Child, IKI, Pixevia, Walmart, A.L.C., Archive, Therabody, Outform, Kingfisher, PMC, Żabka Polska, Boots UK, Ocula Technologies, Grace O'Malley Irish Whiskey, and Metacask.
And this week, we’re focusing on McDonald’s and Google who have announced plans for a new multi-year, global partnership.
The fast food giant says that it plans to leverage a wide range of Google Cloud's hardware, data, and AI technologies to “implement innovation faster and create even better experiences for its customers, restaurant teams, and employees”.
"We see tremendous opportunity for growth in our digital business and our partnership with Google Cloud allows us to capitalise on this by leveraging our size and scale to build capabilities and implement solutions at unmatched speeds," says Brian Rice, McDonald's Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer.
"Connecting our restaurants worldwide to millions of datapoints across our digital ecosystem means tools get sharper, models get smarter, restaurants become easier to operate, and most importantly, the overall experience for our customers and crew gets even better."
Google Distributed Cloud, a combined hardware and software offering, is planned to be deployed to thousands of McDonald's restaurants so they can leverage both cloud-based software applications and their own software and AI solutions locally on-site, as needed.
With Google Cloud edge computing capabilities, McDonald's will be able to draw new insights into how equipment is performing, enact solutions that reduce business disruptions, and diminish complexity for crew so restaurant teams can focus on customers.
McDonald's will be the largest global foodservice retailer to use Google Distributed Cloud's new capabilities, with plans for thousands of restaurants to begin receiving their hardware and software upgrades next year.
"Through this wide ranging partnership, Google Cloud will help McDonald's seize on new opportunities to transform its business and customer experiences, empowering restaurants worldwide with the latest technologies for near-term impact," says Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud's CEO.
"Pairing the iconic brand, size and scale of McDonald's with Google Cloud's deep history in AI and technology innovation will redefine how this industry works and what people expect when they dine out."
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