By Brian Rice, Executive Vice President & Global Chief Information Officer

At McDonald’s, we’ve always believed in the power of scale. But in today’s world, scale alone isn’t enough to make an impact. What matters is how you use that scale. 

That’s where digital – and the work of teams across the McDonald’s business - comes in.

Our digital transformation strategy, which we call Digitizing the Arches, is a once-in-a-generation transformation that’s redefining what it means to be a modern, connected brand. This isn’t just about upgrading our systems, we’re unleashing the full potential of McDonald’s iconic brand and global footprint to delight our customers. 

The investments we are making will help accelerate growth, using the power of data to reshape how our company operates at every level of the business.
 

Restaurant Platform

Edge, our computing platform developed with Google, extends cloud capabilities directly into our restaurants—and it's now live in hundreds of restaurants across the U.S. and expanding globally.

It’s the digital foundation for the next generation of restaurant innovation—powering AI and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled kitchens that are smarter, faster, and more reliable. The result will be increased uptime, better food quality, and a smoother experience for both customers and crew.

In addition, we’re deploying AI-powered tech through Accuracy Scales. These scales compare target versus actual weight of outgoing orders and flag to the crew if anything is missing before the order reaches the customer. They’ve been deployed across thousands of restaurants in our Drive Thru and Delivery channels in a dozen markets and we’re quickly expanding to more.  As a result, Accuracy Scales help ensure meals reach customers exactly as ordered—boosting trust, satisfaction, and operational precision.

Customer Platform

We want to keep our customers coming back, so we’re transforming how we engage with our customers and loyal fans through tailored marketing offers. For the first time, U.S. customers were able to redeem MyMcDonald’s reward points for a non-food digital experience: access to one month of Snapchat+ for just 1,500 points! By integrating digital lifestyle offerings into our consumer platform, we’re expanding what loyalty can mean – moving beyond transactions to create deeper relevance and connection. In the U.S., customers who join our MyMcDonald’s loyalty program more than double their visits in the first year after joining the program. And in Q2, we surpassed 185 million 90-day active loyalty users across 60 markets, which is well on our way to our goal of 250 million by 2027.

We’re expanding our digital touchpoints so customers can access more feel-good moments when and where they want. For example, in Sweden, we launched Web Ordering, bringing the McDonald’s experience to customers who prefer to order online without downloading an app.

We are also deploying Ready on Arrival starting with our top markets. Ready on Arrival can reduce customer wait times by more than 50% thanks to geofencing technology that alerts the crew to begin preparing the customer’s order as they are approaching the restaurant. For a Brand that measures progress in tenths of seconds, this is proving to be transformative. 
 

Company Platform

And as a company, we are modernizing how we work by replacing hundreds of legacy tools with modern, scalable platforms. This year, we rolled out new systems across multiple markets to help our teams move faster, make smarter decisions, and focus more time on business insights and running great restaurants.

Across Finance and HR systems alone, we’re retiring hundreds of legacy systems and consolidating into one cloud-based enterprise solution.  This will drive efficiency in our ways of working and drive better integration.

This is what transformation looks like at a company the size and scale of McDonald’s. Our Digitizing the Arches strategy is about unlocking the full potential of our people, our restaurants, and our brand. And while we’re proud of the progress we’ve made, we’re even more excited about what’s ahead.

Because when you combine the scale of McDonald’s with the speed of digital innovation, the sky is the limit.