Self-service kiosks at McDonald’s and other fast-food chains have loomed as job killers since they were first rolled out 25 years ago. But nobody predicted what actually happened.
In one of the earliest mentions of kiosks in fast-food settings in 1999, now-defunct trade industry publication Business Information said that McDonald’s was working to “develop an electronic order-taking system that may eventually replace some of its human equivalents.”
Instead, touchscreen kiosks have added extra work for kitchen staff and pushed customers to order more food than they do at the cash register. The kiosks show the unintended consequences of technology in fast-food and retail settings, including self-checkout. Chains are now experimenting with artificial intelligence at drive-thru lanes, and the experience with kiosks holds lessons for them.
Today, instead of replacing workers, companies deploy kiosks to transfer labor to other tasks like handing off pickup orders, help increase sales, easily adjust prices …