McDonald's is to buy Dynamic Yield, a provider of personalisation and decision logic technology, for $300m to provide an even more personalised customer experience by varying outdoor digital Drive Thru menu displays to show food based on time of day, weather, current restaurant traffic and trending menu items. The technology can also instantly suggest and display additional items to a customer's order based on their current selections.
This will enable McDonald's to be one of the first companies to integrate decision technology into the customer point of sale at a brick and mortar location. McDonald's tested this technology in several U.S. restaurants in 2018.
Upon closing of the acquisition, McDonald's will begin to roll this technology out in the Drive Thru at restaurants in the United States in 2019 and then expand the use to other top international markets.
McDonald's will also begin work to integrate the technology into all of its digital customer experience touchpoints, such as self-order kiosks and McDonald's Global Mobile App.
"Technology is a critical element of our Velocity Growth Plan, enhancing the experience for our customers by providing greater convenience on their terms," said Steve Easterbrook, president and CEO, McDonald's Corporation. "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 customers."