WASHINGTON: McDonald’s is weighing the sale of part of digital start-up Dynamic Yield, which it bought two years ago in a bid to boost drive-through and in-restaurant kiosk orders, the two companies confirmed Saturday.
McDonald’s had originally looked to the artificial intelligence business to provide personalized digital promotions to consumers, which would vary depending on time of day, weather and wait times.
A potential partial sale of the company had “been discussed from the outset, and now feels like the right time to explore that possibility,” Dynamic Yield’s founder and CEO Liad Agmon said in a statement to AFP confirming an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal.
“We don’t have a set timeline for the potential sale,” the company added.
In its own statement to the AFP, McDonald’s said it had put Dynamic Yield’s technology to use in a number of markets around the world and would continue to do so.
It said it would continue to test “new approaches” in order to better serve its clients’ changing needs.
The 2019 purchase of Dynamic Yield by McDonald’s for more than $300 million represented the US-based group’s largest purchase in years.
Company executives portrayed it as a key element of McDonald’s digital strategy.
