Australian supermarket chain Woolworths had to reconfigure its AI phone assistant Olive after customers reported it fabricated personal stories about having a mother with an "angry voice," insisted it was a real person, and engaged in irrelevant banter during support calls. The chatbot, recently upgraded with Google Gemini Enterprise, also gave inaccurate product pricing. Woolworths retired the assistant's human-style persona after complaints spread on Reddit and X.

Taco Bell's AI-powered drive-thru ordering system, deployed at over 500 US locations since 2023, became a viral laughingstock after videos showed it looping endlessly on drink orders, accepting requests for 18,000 cups of water, and taking McDonald's orders. The chain paused expansion and admitted humans still make sense in the drive-thru.

Security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curry found that McHire, McDonald's AI hiring chatbot built by Paradox.ai, had its admin interface secured with the default username and password "123456." Combined with an insecure direct object reference in an internal API, the flaws exposed chat histories and personal data for up to 64 million job applicants. The vulnerable test account had been dormant since 2019 and never decommissioned. Paradox.ai patched the issues within hours of disclosure on June 30, 2025.

McDonald's ended its two-year partnership with IBM on automated AI order-taking at drive-thrus in June 2024, removing the technology from more than 100 US locations. The decision followed viral TikTok videos showing the system adding nine sweet teas instead of one, inserting random butter and ketchup packets into ice cream orders, and other absurd errors. McDonald's framed the pullback as a positive, saying the test gave them "confidence that a voice-ordering solution for drive-thru will be part of our restaurants' future."