McDonald's has been using artificial intelligence to dynamically price menu items in the US and some global markets, according to a report by Reuters. This involves finding the "optimal price" to match what a particular store's patrons would be willing to pay.

This fluctuates according to location, and even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items, according to information reviewed by Reuters. This is basically surge pricing, like with ride-share platforms, but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.

Reuters got a look at the interface that franchisees use to access this technology and it's pretty creepy. Messages show stuff like "your restaurant is showing MEDIUM SENSITIVITY to price" based on "customer willingness to pay in your area." Cost differences at nearby locations can be stark. Researchers found that a Bic Mac at a Fresno, California store cost $5.69, but the same burger cost $6.89 at another branch two miles down the road. That's a 21 percent difference.

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[–] 3 points 19 hours ago (1 child)

Thank god, finally I'll get cheaper burgers I'm sure!

Can't fucking remember when I went there last. It's just bullshit now.

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  • [–] 3 points 22 hours ago

    Someone's about to enter the find out phase of their fuckery

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  • [–] 2 points 20 hours ago

    On the bright side, at some point in time it will probably price everything at one cent.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago
    [–] 7 points 1 day ago

    This takes "what the market will bear" to a new level. I haven't been to McDonald's in years and now I have even less reason to go.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    They did this before, its just that they are using "AI" now. Probably not an LLM but it would be funny if it is.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (2 children)

    hate to break it to you but pretty much all marketers use llms to crunch their data to optimize profits.

    The obnoxious amount of user data available today - you need AI to compete

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  • [–] 30 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    Stop using their “Rewards app” It’s tracking your purchases, which’ll inform their surveillance and skew the boards.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Correct, but a few additions.

    They already have your credit card on record for repeat purchases (if you pay digitally, they know who you are), thats not the data those apps are after. They are just as bad as tiktoc and reddit when it comes to tracking phone activity and asking for every permission that isnt nailed down. Your phone activity data is worth more to data brokers than a free sandwich every tuesday.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    The average persons data is. I wonder what mine is worth. Surely it just says "yeah they are never going to willingly buy your product, target friends who will apply social pressure instead ... Oh, they are just happy sitting there without ordering anything"

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    [–] 81 points 2 days ago (15 children)

    The bargain with fast food was that it was shitty for you, but it was quick, cheap, and tasted good. Now it’s even WORSE for you, costs as much as an actual meal, and increasingly tastes like garbage. What exactly are people trading off now?

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  • [–] 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    It isn't quick anymore either.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    there was ONE McDonald's that I used to still go to on road trips.

    then the US threatened to take over my country, so ofc I stopped going to McDonald's. I tried to make an exception for it last year because I had to pee and I figured it would be the one place actually open at 1am for me to pee and get a coffee, but nope, closed. guess they want people to piss in the drive thru

    McDonald's doesn't even offer washrooms anymore, they have literally nothing to offer me

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    [–] 116 points 2 days ago (11 children)

    Dynamic pricing nudges the price to the maximum a customer can afford which temporarily maximises profits but creates in the mind of the customer a feeling of being relentlessly over charged and eventually and long-term they won't come back.

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    [–] [S] 158 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Yet another reason to avoid McDonald's, as if the lousy food wasn't enough.

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    [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Convinve the AI to give a negative price.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    When I'm bored, I get price quotes from Lyft and Uber to the airport. I'll click around and look at the different tiers of service. Then I choose not to actually request a fare, and close the app.

    I fly enough to where both apps probably have me as a regular airport customer, but that I'm price sensitive enough where I just won't use their service sometimes.

    I do the same with Doordash and other food apps, where I just put together potential orders to get a sense of how much something would cost if I ordered it, and then just never order it, letting that cart expire. I'm hoping this poisons their data or adds something to the price sensitivity metrics.

    I also look at airfares, hotel prices, etc., a lot. It's not for the purpose of manipulating their algorithms, as I just like to get a sense for how prices move over time. But if there's a side effect that these variable pricing algorithms take into account people who window shop and walk away, maybe I'm helping push prices down.

    If they're gonna create a panopticon, we should fuck with their data.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    The problem is this sounds like a job to do it regularly just to throw off their algorithm.

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  • [–] 1 point 23 hours ago (1 child)

    Yeah, you're probably right. Still, if big tech's ad behavior (ads for stuff you've already bought, ads for things you'd never buy but might have looked up information about for non-consumer reasons) is any indication, I'm not actually sure they're using really sophisticated techniques here that can't be thrown off by one-off bored sessions.

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    [–] 18 points 2 days ago (7 children)

    How do I manipulate it to lowball

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  • [–] 60 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    So if I have no income, dynamic pricing will set the price to free, right?

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    [–] 64 points 2 days ago* (8 children)

    I'm so glad I quit going. And if I quit going, pretty much everyone has

    I had one of those less than stellar childhoods, but I had a fantastic grandparent that would take me to McDonald's sometimes, and that was A HUGE BRIGHT SPOT for me, back when they had aquariums and play places in them? Like, until pretty recently, I was a die-hard fan. I WANTED to like them. What they actually tasted like almost didn't matter, the SIGHT of the yellow arches made me start to think about what being loved by a trusted adult feels like.

    They had to WORK TO LOSE ME as a customer rather than the other way around. And they still managed.

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    [–] 21 points 2 days ago* (13 children)

    On the plus side, surveillance pricing legislation has already been introduced in (IIRC) four states just this year, and if I had to guess, we could eventually see state-level bans in at least half of the states.

    This, like the electronic tags at Walmart, or Uber charging more when your phone battery is low, or Target mining your loyalty club data to surge price you, is something that they're speedrunning to try and normalize before the law catches up.

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    [–] 58 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    My house is literally a 3 minute walk from a McDonalds and I don't eat there at any price. Use AI to model that, fuckers.

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    [–] 23 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Normally my knee jerk reaction would be against this. But if it helps to drive McDonalds to lose customers in the long run, well…🤔

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    [–] 11 points 2 days ago (7 children)

    Not that I needed another reason to avoid McDonald's. Tastes nice, but the burgers have become tiny, and their food gives me the shits.

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    [–] 11 points 2 days ago

    I don't buy McDonal's because the price/value equation is off. Whether it is off because they think I'm rich or because they think I'm addicted doesn't really matter. The result is that I just don't buy.
    But if I was a regular customer, I would see unstable prices as a negative because it means, I have to research current prices first before going there. That's inconvenient. I prefer reasonable and stable prices.

    Maybe, McDonald's introduces haggling next so customers can feel like they are buying a used car when they buy a burger...

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  • [–] 33 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Taco Bell… [is] developing AI platforms for just about everything, including a dynamic drive-thru menu that changes based on the car approaching the window.

    Bet you didn’t algorithm this portly fuck in a tricked out ‘93 Del Sol wanting 55 enchritos until tonight.

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    [–] 10 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    There should be quotes around "burgers" in this headline as well IMO.

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