McDonald's AI pricing engine

What Reuters found

Reuters reviewed screenshots of McDonald’s pricing system and spoke with nine people with firsthand knowledge. The system recommends item prices by restaurant using transaction data and estimates of local willingness to pay. McDonald’s says operators remain free to set prices and calls the portal a recommendation tool, not a mandate.

What remains open

Reuters observed different Big Mac prices at two nearby company-run restaurants, but could not establish whether the pricing engine caused that difference. The investigation raises questions about transparency and franchisee pressure without proving that every price change came from an AI recommendation.