McDonald’s to embrace ML in tech deal worth $300 mn

San Francisco, March 26 (IANS) US-based fast food chain giant McDonald's has announced plans to acquire a start-up named Dynamic Yield for $300 million as it steps up to embrace Machine Learning (ML) in a super-sized way, the media reported.

The deal is the biggest that McDonald's would strike with the Tel-Aviv based start-up which provides retailers with algorithmically driven "decision logic" technology. This is the fast food chain's largest acquisition in 20 years.

"The fast food giant said it has agreed to buy Dynamic Yield, which specialises in personalisation and decision logic technology. Dynamic Yield's technology will allow McDonald's digital drive-thru menus to change based on different factors, such as the weather and current restaurant traffic.

"The deal is valued at more than $300 million, making it the largest McDonald's deal in two decades, people familiar with the matter said," the CNBC reported late on Monday.

McDonald's reportedly said it has already tested this in several US locations last year.

The plan is to start rolling this out across the US in 2019 and then to gradually move into international markets.

"With this acquisition, we're expanding both our ability to increase the role technology and data will play in our future and the speed with which we'll be able to implement our vision of creating more personalised experiences for our customer", McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a statement.

The fast food chain major also plans to integrate this technology into other digital products, like self-serve kiosks and the McDonald's mobile app.