What happened

The AI system frequently misunderstood customer orders, leading to frustrating and sometimes comical errors. Videos on social media showcased it's many failures, such as:

• Adding bacon to ice cream orders

• Adding nine sweet teas to an order when the customer only requested one

• Adding USD 211 worth of chicken nuggets to a single order

• Adding unnecessary items like ketchup and butter packets to simple ice cream orders

• Misinterpreting requests for vanilla ice cream and water, resulting in multiple sundaes and butter portions.

These and other errors were shared publicly, embarrassing McDonald's and damaging it's reputation. 

Why it happened

The AI system appeared to struggle with several challenges, including processing complex orders accurately, understanding different accents and dialects, background noise and orders from nearby cars.