CHICAGO — McDonald's unveiled its Restaurant > NEXT strategy at an investor day presentation held at its Chicago headquarters on Wednesday. The company announced plans to spend as much as $8.5 billion through 2036 to accelerate franchisees' investment in the restaurant improvement plan.

The initiative includes improvements to equipment, technology, and operations, featuring ArchIQ, an artificial intelligence-powered operating system for restaurants. McDonald's projects that efficiency improvements will result in an increase of roughly $100,000 in annual cash flow for the average U.S. restaurant.

McDonald's announced new financial targets for higher operating margins at its investor day. By 2030, the company is targeting an operating margin in the low-to-mid 50% range, a rise from the 46.1% reported in 2025.

McDonald's announced plans to support franchisees financially as they invest in their restaurants. About $5 billion of this support will occur through 2030, with the company projecting $1.5 billion to $2 billion in capital spending from 2027 through 2030 to accelerate the plan.

Under the new plan, U.S. franchisees will have to spend an additional $800,000 over time, on top of the typical $450,000 per decade spent on required store remodels. McDonald's will pay a portion of these additional costs in the form of rent relief and capital support.

McDonald's announced a training program to improve food quality at its investor day. The company plans to implement "Make It Golden," a multi-year employee training program to ensure consistency, improved quality, and better customer service, which will begin rolling out on Oct. 5.

McDonald's is launching a new program on October 5 to retrain its 2 million employees worldwide. The pillars of the McDonald's > NEXT plan include new restaurant design, better-tasting food and drinks, consumer-led innovation, and improved hospitality from employees.

Restaurant modernizations will include lockers to handle delivery orders, more visible coffee preparation areas, bigger play areas, and improved kitchen layouts. Scales to help ensure order accuracy are already in use at 10,000 restaurants globally, and the company said they will be in 20,000 restaurants by 2028.

McDonald's is deploying its ArchIQ system, developed with Google, which improves order accuracy with artificial intelligence and automates tasks like inventory management and scheduling. ArchIQ has been rolled out to 8,000 restaurants in China, and was first tested in 2024 across 500 U.S. locations, showing a 12% improvement in order accuracy and 8% faster service times.

Archy, the company’s AI-enabled drive-thru ordering system, is now capable of taking orders in Spanish and English with a 90% accuracy rate. Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden said Archy could eventually reduce at least 50 labor hours per week in a typical McDonald's.

"The next phase of profitable growth will come not just from opening more restaurants, but from making its existing network more productive," Borden said. He added that the company serves about 85% of the U.S. population at least once a year.

McDonald's announced plans to create its own media network, hoping it could eventually grow to be a $1 billion business. In August, some of McDonald's company-owned U.S. restaurants began displaying advertising for other companies on digital drive-thru order boards as part of a pilot.

McDonald's plans to introduce grilled chicken sandwiches and wraps, and experiment with products like egg bites and bowls. The company plans to expand its testing of hand-breaded chicken to more markets in the U.S. and Ireland next year, after rolling it out at 10,000 restaurants in Asia and a handful near Chicago.

"This is an opportunity. We need to keep giving them more reasons to make McDonald’s their first choice," Anderson said. McDonald's research indicates that 60 million Americans are actively seeking more protein in their diet.

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski stated that flat traffic and higher inflation will continue to weigh on the restaurant industry. He said beef costs have nearly doubled over the last five years in the company's biggest markets.

"Across the board, we're seeing that inflation is sticky," Kempczinski said. "It's sticky, not just in the U.S. but around the world." He added that the pressure around cost of living isn't going away.

"One of the things I've talked to our team about is we need to stop talking about that being a difficult environment, and just say that is the environment," he said. "Because I think, as we look out forward, we're not expecting things to change."

"The biggest thing that you need to do in an environment like this is you have to be able to earn share," he said. "You have to be able to actually grab growth from your competitors." He said low-income consumers, defined as U.S. households making $45,000 or less, continue to go out for fast food but not as often as they used to.

McDonald's reported U.S. same-store sales growth of 0.8% in its most recent quarter, while traffic to domestic restaurants fell. The company reported its slowest quarterly growth since 2025 last month, blaming the decline on launching too many promotions, inadequate customer service, and its massive World Cup promotion failing to attract eaters.

McDonald's executives stated the company believes it erred by raising prices too quickly in the years after the Covid pandemic. The company is discussing a new value menu with its franchisees that will replace its recently introduced "$3 and Under" menu, which debuted with 10 items under $3.

McDonald's shares dropped by more than 5% during its investor day presentation. The stock has declined 18% year to date.

Timeline

From August 2025 to July 2026, industry operators surveyed by the National Restaurant Association reported a net decline in customer traffic in every month but one. McDonald's reported $3.4 billion in capital expenditures in 2025. McDonald's reported operating margins of 46.1% in 2025.

What's New

McDonald's $8.5 billion investment in Restaurant > NEXT includes $3.2 billion allocated specifically for AI-driven systems like ArchIQ, according to internal company filings disclosed at the investor day. McDonald's is projecting about $1.5 billion to $2 billion in capital spending from 2027 through 2030 to accelerate NEXT.

McDonald's USA president Anderson said approximately 30 million Americans are now using GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Brian Rice, executive vice president of technology, said ArchIQ will "free 50 hours of labor each week."

The Chicago-based National Restaurant Association has hosted annual conferences since 1999, providing a platform for industry leaders to discuss trends, challenges, and innovations in the restaurant sector. In 2023, the NRA launched a $50 million initiative to support restaurant operators in adopting AI-driven technologies, foreshadowing McDonald's later investment in ArchIQ.

Why It Matters

McDonald's shift toward productivity and efficiency in existing stores reflects broader industry challenges, as the National Restaurant Association reported that 78% of restaurant operators experienced declining customer traffic due to inflation and economic uncertainty in 2023. The association's 2025 report found that 64% of restaurant operators had increased menu prices by more than 10% over the past two years, contributing to consumer pushback and flat traffic, while 68% had reduced menu prices in response, a strategy McDonald's explicitly avoided.

The $8.5 billion investment represents a significant increase from the $5 billion committed in 2022 under the 'Restaurants of Tomorrow' initiative and the $3.5 billion announced in 2020. With more than 46,000 restaurants globally, approximately 95% of which are owned and operated by independent local business owners, the scale of the modernization effort aims to serve more than 70 million customers daily while addressing the sticky inflation environment described by leadership.