McDonald's kiosks: how they changed counter ordering

McDonald's put self-order kiosks into its U.S. restaurants as part of a remodel program it called Experience of the Future. In 2018 it planned to add them to 1,000 restaurants a quarter, and its CEO said guests who took longer at the screen ordered more. The company said the kiosks moved crew into table service and guest-help roles.

Below is a dated timeline built from McDonald's statements, earnings calls and reporting in CNBC, Restaurant Business, QSR Magazine and Restaurant Dive, followed by what a single restaurant or small group can use from it. For McDonald's voice AI in the drive-thru, see our separate McDonald's AI drive-thru timeline.

When did McDonald's add kiosks, and how fast?

Date	What happened	Source
June 2017	A McDonald's spokeswoman said kiosks "are not a labor replacement" and move back-of-house staff to roles such as concierge and table service. An analyst at Cowen expected kiosks in 2,500 restaurants by the end of 2017.	CNBC
January 2018	About 3,000 of McDonald's 14,000 U.S. restaurants had the Experience of the Future design with self-order kiosks, with 4,000 more planned that year. McDonald's paid 55% of each remodel and franchisees the rest. A third of its more than 37,000 restaurants worldwide had kiosks.	Restaurant Business
June 2018	CEO Steve Easterbrook said McDonald's would upgrade 1,000 stores with kiosks and mobile ordering each quarter for the next eight to nine quarters. CNBC reported that Canada, Australia and the U.K. already had kiosks and mobile ordering throughout.	CNBC
August 2018	McDonald's said it and its franchisees would invest $6 billion to modernize most U.S. restaurants by 2020, with kiosks, table service, digital menu boards and curbside pickup.	QSR Magazine
November 2018	McDonald's slowed the remodels and gave franchisees more time. Its CFO said the work had cut year-to-date same-store sales by roughly half a point, through closures and slow recoveries. Remodels cost $160,000 to $750,000.	QSR Magazine
March 2019	McDonald's agreed to buy Dynamic Yield to personalize drive-thru menu boards, and said it would bring the technology to its kiosks and app.	Restaurant Business
November 2020	McDonald's described MyMcDonald's, a digital program tying together the app, in-store kiosks, outdoor menu boards and payments, and a test of letting guests identify themselves at a kiosk.	Restaurant Business
September 2021	Working with the National Federation of the Blind, McDonald's said it would add screen-reading software, tactile keypads and a headphone connection to all kiosks in California and 25% of kiosks in company-owned U.S. restaurants by the end of 2021, and to every new U.S. kiosk installed after July 1, 2021.	Restaurant Dive
April 2022	McDonald's completed the sale of Dynamic Yield, which provided suggestive selling software for its menu boards and kiosks, to Mastercard.	Restaurant Business
July 2022	CEO Chris Kempczinski said digital sales, which McDonald's counts as mobile app, kiosk and delivery orders, were about a quarter of U.S. sales and over half in Germany, France and the U.K.	Restaurant Dive
December 2023	McDonald's and Google Cloud announced in-restaurant edge servers to improve the app and in-store kiosks.	Restaurant Dive
September 2026	At its investor day, McDonald's listed kiosks among the assets, from app to menu boards, it plans to use for new sources of revenue, starting with a media network piloted in 450 company-owned U.S. restaurants.	Investor day transcript

Did the kiosks raise sales?

McDonald's gave two kinds of answer, and neither isolates the kiosk. In June 2018, Easterbrook told CNBC: "What we're finding is when people dwell more, they select more. There's a little bit of an average check boost." He gave no figure.

He did put a number on the whole remodel. In August 2018, QSR Magazine quoted him saying a full Experience of the Future modernization brought "mid-single digit sales uplifts," and adding the new elements to an already modern restaurant brought 1 to 2 percent. Those figures cover new decor, table service, menu boards and mobile pickup along with the kiosks.

The cost side showed up too. In November 2018 the CFO described lobbies closed during construction, crew paid through the downtime and uneven sales recovery afterwards. CNBC reported in March 2019 that some franchisees complained the project was hurting short-term sales without a payoff.

What happened to jobs at the counter?

McDonald's position in 2017 and 2018 was that kiosks shifted work. Its June 2017 statement said they "provide an opportunity to transition back-of-the-house positions to more customer service roles such as concierges and table service." The remodels included counters rebuilt for table service.

We found no McDonald's figure for crew hours before and after kiosks.

What can a smaller restaurant take from McDonald's kiosks?

What McDonald's did	The version for one store or a small group
Rolled kiosks out with a full remodel, and sometimes closed lobbies to do it	Add a kiosk without construction if you can, and install it outside your rush.
Gave crew a new job (table service, concierge) when guests moved to screens	Decide before launch who walks guests through the kiosk, who runs food and who answers the help button.
Said longer time at the screen meant bigger orders	Count it yourself: average order at the kiosk and at the counter for the same hours, before and after.
Measured the whole remodel, which made the kiosk's own effect hard to see	Change one thing at a time. Hold menu prices and promotions steady during the kiosk trial.
Bought personalization software for kiosks and menu boards, then sold it three years later	Start with the add-on prompts your POS kiosk already offers, and check which ones guests accept.
Added screen readers, tactile keypads and headphone connections; blind guests had said nobody came when they pressed for help	Ask each vendor about accessibility, keep a staffed register open and make sure someone answers the help button.
Counted kiosk orders inside a digital total with app and delivery	Tag kiosk orders in your POS so you can see them apart from counter and online orders.

For choosing a kiosk, start with the self-service kiosk buyer's guide. For costs, the kiosk cost guide lists the printed prices from Square and others. Screen layout and add-on prompts are covered in kiosk menu setup, and accessibility rules in kiosk accessibility.

Is there a kiosk that takes spoken orders?

McDonald's 2021 upgrade gave blind and low-vision guests audio prompts through headphones. Maple makes a kiosk that takes the whole order by voice: guests speak their order while the cart builds on screen, the order goes into the POS, and every screen has a staff-help button. It is in early access with a small number of restaurants, Maple supplies the kiosk, and it is priced per unit with no public price. See the Maple kiosk page for how it works.

Published by Maple, which sells restaurant voice AI, including an early-access voice kiosk. This AI-assisted page combines McDonald's statements and earnings-call remarks as reported by CNBC, Restaurant Business, QSR Magazine and Restaurant Dive, plus an investor day transcript, with an original table for smaller operators. It does not estimate McDonald's kiosk sales, count its kiosks today or report results Maple measured.