When McDonald’s first opened in the 1940s, employees stood at a physical counter, burgers and fries were listed on paper menus, and customers paid cash to a human cashier.

How weird.

It’s no secret that Big Mac has been integrated into big tech in every way imaginable. Technology has permeated every aspect of McDonald’s business these days, so it’s not a stretch to call it a technology company that just happens to sell burgers.

McDonald’s mobile app; its unmanned order kiosks; its digital menu that changes based on trends, weather, and more; and even its generative artificial intelligence — these have collectively helped McDonald’s generate billions for the company dollars in additional sales and efficiencies, the company has 40,000 stores in approximately 100 countries.

However, the same technology could also bring McDonald’s to its knees.

System outages plagued McDonald’s stores in some of the world’s largest markets including Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom on Friday, forcing many to temporarily accept only cash or close entirely. McDonald’s has not said how widespread the outage is, but on Friday afternoon, 12 hours after the outage was first reported, a San Antonio, Texas, franchise was no longer taking orders on its app and was unable to accept cash.

McDonald’s said in a statement that the outage was caused by an unnamed third-party provider during a “configuration change.” McDonald’s referred to the statement when asked for comment. McDonald’s Japan apologized on Saturday for the inconvenience and said all its restaurants and delivery services are operating normally.

The burger giant did say something similar could happen, at least to Wall Street.

“We are increasingly reliant on technology systems,” company attorneys wrote in an annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 22. “Any failure or disruption in these systems could materially impact our or our franchisees’ operations, or our customer experience and experience.” “

Even artificial intelligence is warned in the filing, which states that “our incorporation of artificial intelligence tools into certain aspects of our restaurant operations may not produce the expected efficiencies and may impact our business results.”

However, Friday’s widespread outages are unlikely to cause McDonald’s to abandon its long-term strategy of deepening its reliance on technology.

McDonald’s wants more customers to order through digital channels such as its app and kiosks, which already account for a third of its sales in key markets by 2022.

In December, McDonald’s announced it was partnering with Google to move restaurant computer systems to the cloud. The global scale of data will allow McDonald’s generative artificial intelligence systems to “better understand the broadest patterns and nuances,” resulting in McDonald’s What was said at the time would be “hotter, fresher food.” Generative AI already powers much of restaurant operations and personalized promotions based on internal customer profiles.

It’s not just McDonald’s. Technology is a popular strategy for nearly every major fast food chain.

Starbucks announced in 2019 the launch of its own in-house artificial intelligence platform called Deep Brew, which then-CEO Kevin Johnson said would increasingly power its personalized services, stores Staffing and inventory management.

“In the next 10 years, we want to be as good as the tech giants at artificial intelligence,” Johnson told a retail conference in 2020, according to industry publication Retail Dive. Starbucks hired a former McDonald’s executive in 2022 to oversee the use of its technology.

The risks with this new technology come not just from system outages.

Wendy’s has moved on after its CEO said during an earnings call in mid-February that the chain would soon use “dynamic pricing” on its digital signage — another technology that would have been impossible before the information age. There was strong public opposition.

The chain later clarified that it did not plan to use digital signage to implement “surge pricing,” which could allow it to charge higher prices during busy times. Instead, Wendy’s said its CEO’s comments were in reference to its plan to offer discounts to customers during slower times of the day.