McDonald's, Wendy's push AI drive-throughs, but most customers still prefer humans

Fast-food executives are betting heavily on AI automation, viewing it primarily as a path to labor cost reduction and operational efficiency. McDonald's and Wendy's have both launched substantial drive-through AI programs—Wendy's since 2023, McDonald's more recently with ArchIQ—and leadership has publicly committed to expanding these digital capabilities. Yet this top-down push for automation masks a fundamental misalignment with consumer behavior.

Metrigy's research quantifies this disconnect starkly: businesses believe approximately 40% of consumers prefer AI ordering, but only about 22% actually do. The gap reveals that restaurant executives are systematically overestimating consumer readiness. According to Wharton professor Jerry Jacobs, the underlying assumption driving this automation is flawed—the logic that "if a computer can do a task, the person shouldn't." Jacobs and other researchers argue that AI need not mean workforce reduction; it could instead redirect human workers toward hospitality-focused roles (greeting, problem-solving) that machines struggle with, while AI handles repetitive ordering. This reframing would preserve the social dimension of ordering that surveys show consumers value, even in interactions lasting under a minute.

The good news for chains: consumer acceptance is shifting, albeit gradually. Preference for AI chatbots increased more than four percentage points between Q1 and Q2 2026, suggesting that trust and familiarity will likely grow over time. However, current hesitation is rooted in legitimate concerns—AI systems "mess up quite a bit," as Metrigy analyst Layne Haaksma notes, and those errors create lasting impressions. The real challenge for McDonald's and Wendy's is not whether to deploy AI, but how to deploy it in ways that respect what customers actually value rather than simply replacing interactions they still prefer to keep human.