McDonald’s Corp. has agreed to sell its Dynamic Yield technology platform, aimed at personalization and decision engineering at kiosks and drive-thrus, to Mastercard Inc., the companies announced Tuesday.
The Chicago-based burger brand and the Purchase, N.Y.-based financial services company said the deal would close in the first quarter of 2022. Terms were not disclosed.
In October, McDonald’s spun off another tech division, selling MCD Tech Labs, originally called Apprente, to IBM. McDonald’s had acquired Apprente, a then-two-year-old Silicon Valley startup that specialized in voice-based artificial intelligence conversational technology, in September 2019.
McDonald’s had acquired Dynamic Yield in March 2019.
With the MCD Tech Labs sale, Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s CEO, said other companies could help get the artificial-intelligence technology get to the finish line.
“The reason we're doing this with IBM,” said Kempczinski at the time, “ is to be able to have someone that can take how far we've gotten right now with the solution and be able to kind of finish the development and then help us deploy this at scale, and so we're going to use their expertise certainly in AI and everything that they've learned from Watson, etc.”
He noted that the drive-thru ordering-taking platform needed work to introduce other languages and menu permutations. “That work is beyond the scale of our core competencies, if you will,” he said. “IBM is a natural partner for us.”
Dynamic Yield is a similar technology division, delivering individualized product recommendations, offers and content based on a range of factors, including past purchases, page views, time of day, current store traffic and trending products.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform uses artificial intelligence and other technologies to support more than 400 brands across the retail, financial services, travel and restaurant industries.
Raj Seshadri, president of data and services at Mastercard, said in a statement that “the notion of going into a store or opening a webpage to find an experience perfectly tailored to you is no longer farfetched. It’s a reality that more brands are deploying and more consumers expect. With Dynamic Yield’s expertise and our scale and relationships, we’ll be able to bring the connections between the end consumer and our customers to new heights.”
With its acquisition of Dynamic Yield, McDonald’s said it became one of the first brands to integrate decision technology into its restaurants.
Dynamic Yield’s technology has been deployed at McDonald’s drive-thrus and ordering kiosks in several markets around the world, the company said, adding that it planned to continue integrating Dynamic Yield’s capabilities globally and across ordering channels.
“We’re delighted to continue working with McDonald’s, a longstanding client and proven innovator in this space,” Seshadri continued.
When the deal closes, current chief technology officer Ori Bauer will take the helm as CEO. Liad Agmon, current CEO, will remain in an advisory capacity.
McDonald’s has nearly 40,000 locations in more than 100 countries.
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