McDonald’s Faces Class Action Lawsuit Claiming AI Tool Raised Prices for Big Mac, Other Menu Items
McDonald’s is facing a proposed class action lawsuit that claims a shared AI pricing engine pooled nonpublic franchise sales data and helped push menu prices higher.
The complaint, filed October 2nd in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accuses McDonald’s USA and McDonald’s Corporation of antitrust violations through a centralized machine-learning pricing engine in use since at least 2019, the filing says.
Plaintiff Michael Thomas of DeKalb, Illinois, filed the suit for customers who allegedly paid inflated prices. The complaint says the tool takes in transaction data from about 14,000 US restaurants, roughly 95% of them franchised, and recommends prices for menu items such as Big Macs.
“The engine, according to recent public reporting, does not just recommend prices that cover costs. It estimates how much each restaurant’s likely customers are willing to pay and tells each franchisee how sensitive its likely customers are to prices using the nonpublic data of competing McDonald’s to do so.”
The complaint alleges franchisees were heavily pressured to adopt the system. It says that starting in January of 2026, McDonald’s required approved pricing tools and tracked deviations for renewal and expansion decisions.
Thomas claims McDonald’s own May 29th, 2024, fact sheet shows average menu prices rose about 40% from 2019 to 2024.
“The company’s fiscal year 2022 and 2023 10-Ks credit as a driver the company’s ‘strategic menu price increases.'”
McDonald’s denies the claim. The company says franchisees make their own pricing decisions, reports Reuters.
Says McDonald’s,
“AI does not set the price of a Big Mac or any other menu item.”
McDonald’s is a fast-food chain. Most of its US restaurants are owned by franchisees.
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