McDonald's buys voice-based AI to speed up ordering

If you thought we had perfected fast food ordering, think again. McDonald's is going to drag us all into the future, whether we like it or not. The golden arched burger empire announced Tuesday that it plans to acquire Apprente, a startup that specializes in speech-based AI technology. The McDonald's press release claims this will "allow for faster, simpler and more accurate order taking" at its drive-thru kiosks. Kiosks like this have been more and more common in McDonald's restaurants in recent years. Somewhat crucially, McDonald's didn't say how much it's paying for Apprente.