McDonald’s chief restaurant officer Brad McMullen says ‘no plans’ to replace workers with AI, robots

AI is beginning to wash through Australian and global workplaces and millions of jobs could be on the cutting block. But there is one workplace where chatbots and robots won’t be taking over anytime soon: McDonald’s. The iconic fast-food business employs 115,000 workers nationwide, and in an extended interview with NewsWire this week, McDonald's Australia chief restaurant officer Brad McMullen said human beings would remain at the centre of the restaurants for years to come. “It’s such a people business, dealing with customers,” he said. “At the moment, we’re focused on how to make the burger, how to serve customers, not how to use AI.” Mr McMullen said the company would deploy AI to help restaurant managers make “better decisions”, but the business would remain a “human centric” enterprise. “People make the experience better at McDonald’s,” he said. “So we’re going to use AI to help people make better decisions.” He said there were “no plans” to replace workers with robots. “No sushi trains or anything like that,” he said. A recent report from US tech behemoth Microsoft lists the top-40 jobs most at risk to AI disruption and fast-food workers are not listed. Instead, interpreters and translators, ticket agents and travel clerks, telephone operators, writers and authors, broadcast announcers and radio DJs and web developers are some of the professions thought to be most exposed to the AI wave. McDonald’s Australia, a division of the larger New York-listed $340bn McDonald’s Corp, boasts 1050 restaurants nationwide. It has been operating in Australia since 1971 when its burgers sold for 20c. Some 70 per cent of the company’s workforce are in secondary school, TAFE or university. TV star Sylvia Jeffreys, Paralympian Tristan Knowles and Anthony Albanese all count a stint at McDonald’s on their work resumes and more than one million Australians have worked its kitchens, floors and offices at one point in their life. The Prime Minister first revealed his Macca’s stint back in 2021 while railing against the then Scott Morrison government’s approach to industrial relations. “I used to work out the back. It was hot, hard work,” he said. “It’s a good thing that young people work in casual jobs, like McDonald’s … it’s a good thing, it teaches them discipline.” Mr McMullen said he was not surprised to see such high-profile Australians on the company’s alumni roll. “We’ve employed 1½ million people across our time,” he said. “There are doctors, lawyers, tradies, teachers. There are McDonald’s lifers, franchisees, corporate people. “You would be hard pressed to find a profession I think that doesn’t have an ex-McDonald’s person in it somewhere.” Mr Albanese worked at the company’s Broadway restaurant near The University of Sydney. Mr McMullen said imparting foundational skills to young Australians starting out in their work lives constituted a “core benefit” McDonald’s provided the country. “If I think about myself in my career, just the basics of learning to read a roster, when do I have to turn up?” he said. “What uniform do I need to bring? What’s workplace health and safety? Some of the kind of fundamental principles of working in any job but then also being part of a team, communicating, learning different skills of how to build a burger, how to serve a customer, how to deal with a difficult customer. “Those kind of life skills are really important for young people.” McDonald’s invests more than $60m a year into training and development, which Mr McMullen credited as a central value to the company. “There is a real hunger from applicants to learn on the job,” he said. “Not every business is investing in training anymore. They might outsource it to a university or to someone else. Applicants come to us looking for training.” For Morgan Consulting principal consultant Tom Stanley, a McDonald’s CV “instantly stands out”. “It shows you’ve cut your teeth in a fast-paced, high-performing, and people-first environment where teamwork, service and reliability really matter,” he said. McDonald’s pays its employees the award rate, or the minimum industry wage, and it is battling with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association union over a bargaining push for higher wages. NewsWire asked whether the company could “do both” or pay its workers above the award rate alongside investing in skills development. In response, Mr McMullen said the company would focus on “setting Australians up for success in their career”. “We provide brilliant foundational skills for people to go into society and thrive in whatever they go and choose to do,” he said. “We’re focused on continuing to invest in what we do best, providing great first jobs for people.”