McDonald’s laid out a decade-long plan at its Chicago investor day: hand-breaded chicken, Google-built AI, remodeled restaurants and an advertising network on its drive-thru screens. Last quarter, Burger King grew more than 10 times faster.
McDonald’s announced an $8.5 billion investment plan on Sept. 23, covering restaurant upgrades, new technology and menu changes through 2036.
About $5 billion of it arrives by 2030.
Many customers are arguing that all McDonald’s needs to do is bring back fun, go retro, and offer more value menu items.
Burger King grew 8.5%. McDonald’s grew 0.8%
Last quarter, U.S. same-store sales at McDonald’s rose 0.8%.
At Burger King, they rose 8.5%.
That is more than 10 times the growth, at a chain a fraction of McDonald’s size. The company’s stock hit a 52-week low earlier in September.
Now they are panicking.
Hand-breaded chicken is the menu bet
McDonald’s wants to take chicken from the competition.
The company is pushing hand-breaded chicken, which already runs at 10,000 restaurants across Asia and a handful of locations near Chicago. McDonald’s says it has boosted both sales and customer quality ratings where it exists.
The goal is a 1.5 percentage point gain in U.S. chicken market share by 2030, with a matching target in beverages, while defending its lead in beef.
Chicken is where Burger King, Popeyes, Chick-fil-A and Raising Cane’s have been eating McDonald’s lunch for years. Hand-breading is slower and more expensive than the frozen alternative. That’s the point.
New items in development include bigger burgers, chicken bowls and an expanded beverage platform that launched in the U.S., Canada and Germany in May.
Except customers don’t seem to want more expensive items. Times are tough, and higher prices might bite McDonald’s in the butt.
The AI is called ArchIQ, and Google built it
McDonald’s is deploying a generative AI system developed with Google.
ArchIQ handles order accuracy, automates inventory management and scheduling, and flags equipment problems before they cause downtime. It’s rolling out across U.S. and international markets the company operates directly.
A second tool, AI-enabled revenue management, is designed to raise average check size. So is a suggestive-selling system the company calls Archy.
Executives were blunt that AI is also a cost play. One told investors it will enable “a step-change improvement in corporate G&A,” meaning fewer people doing back-office work.
There’s also a low-tech accuracy fix. Scales that verify orders are correct already sit in 10,000 restaurants globally. That goes to 20,000 by 2028.
Basically, higher prices, forced advertisements on menu boards, and layoffs. I don’t know if this is going to go the way they hope.
The drive-thru ad network is now official
McDonald’s said it plans to build a media network, selling advertising from other businesses on its digital drive-thru displays.
Earlier that same week, reporting revealed the company was quietly piloting exactly that at select company-owned restaurants, showing ads after customers place their orders.
That pilot wasn’t a test balloon. It was a preview.
The appeal is straightforward. The screens already exist, the audience is captive, and roughly 70 million people visit McDonald’s daily worldwide. Ad revenue costs almost nothing to produce once the hardware is installed.
The restaurants are getting rebuilt
Planned changes include delivery order lockers, more visible coffee preparation areas meant to improve quality perception, bigger play areas, and reworked kitchen layouts.
Some coverage has described the direction as a return to 1990s-style McDonald’s, meaning restaurants people actually want to sit in and visit. A return to the fun would be a key win with customers given that retro Halloween buckets and McDonald’s Land characters get a lot of positive feedback and attention.
A crew training program called Make It Golden is also launching, built around a model McDonald’s tested in Australia that produced double-digit improvements in guest satisfaction in one year.
They’re planning around weight-loss drugs
McDonald’s discussed strategies to win over GLP-1 users, meaning customers taking weight-loss medications that suppress appetite.
That’s a fast food chain publicly building a plan around a drug class that makes people eat less. The specifics weren’t detailed, but acknowledging it at investor day is notable.
What McDonald’s promised Wall Street
By 2030, the company is targeting an operating margin in the low-to-mid 50% range. In 2025, it reported 46.1%.
General and administrative spending drops to about 1.9% of systemwide sales by 2030, down from a forecast 2.2% this year.
New restaurant openings are expected to add roughly 2.5% to systemwide sales growth in 2027, easing to about 2% by 2030.
The scale McDonald’s is working with
McDonald’s operates more than 46,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, roughly 95% franchised. Second-quarter systemwide sales hit $37 billion, up 5%.
Its loyalty program counts nearly 220 million active users over a 90-day window, with loyalty sales up more than 20% year over year to $40 billion.
The company could turn it around, but they need to understand that customers don’t want to spend more money and they want the retro fun back.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
Hat Tips:
CNBC (Sept. 23, 2026), the investor day coverage, the media network plans, the operating margin and G&A targets and the GLP-1 strategy
Yahoo Finance (Sept. 23, 2026), the Burger King same-store sales comparison, the $8.5 billion investment breakdown and the restaurant design direction
Restaurant Dive (Sept. 24, 2026), the chicken and beverage market share goals, the menu development details and the Jill McDonald figures
Associated Press via KSAT (Sept. 23, 2026), the ArchIQ and Google partnership, the remodel specifics and the order accuracy scale rollout
McDonald’s Corp. investor day transcript and SEC filings (2026), the Make It Golden program, the Australia training results, the second-quarter results and the loyalty figures
AI Disclosure: All articles are assigned, edited and reviewed by an experienced human editor before posting. Like most modern newsrooms, WebReef Media uses a variety of AI tools to help with accuracy and efficiency. Ways AI may be used in article creation include research, grammar, fact-checking and ideation, as well as occasional AI generated or enhanced thumbnails or graphics. No articles are generated or posted without human oversight or involvement.