McDonald's reportedly plans to "double down" on its AI investments over the next several years and is “betting on India to be a key hub for data governance, engineering and platform architecture,” a senior executive said, reported Reuters.

The QSR operates hundreds of restaurants across the country and recently set up a global office in the southern city of Hyderabad, with an aim to make it the largest outside the United States, wrote the outlet.

"We're still in the early stages, so it's hard to pin down the exact investment," McDonald's head of Global Business Services Operations, Deshant Kaila, said in an interview on the sidelines of an event in Hyderabad. He said the India push will center on building its AI team, but added that spending will lean more toward technology and tools, not headcount.

McDonald's reportedly uses AI to verify orders at 400 restaurants to pre-empt errors before handing them over to customers and expects this system to roll out to 40,000 locations globally by 2027, Durga Prakash, head of technology (global offices), said.

The QSR is also using AI tools to forecast sales, decide on pricing and assess product performance and is building a personalized app, which would work across countries, according to Kaila.

The company is in talks to set up a global office in Poland, just like the ones in India and Mexico, according to Durga Prakash. Earlier this year, the southern Indian state of Telangana said that McDonald's would launch a global capability center, employing 2,000 people in Hyderabad.

In March, NACS Daily reported that McDonald's is giving its 43,000 restaurants a technology makeover, starting with internet-connected kitchen equipment, artificial intelligence-enabled drive-throughs and AI-powered tools for managers.

The goal is to “drive better experiences for its customers and workers who today contend with issues ranging from broken machines to wrong orders, according to Brian Rice, the Chicago-based burger giant’s chief information officer.”