Duckhub Blog
Guides, news and comparisons to help your restaurant grow online.
NewsGoogle's April 2026 Review Policy: Staff-Name Requests and Review Quotas Now Banned
In mid-April 2026 Google tightened its Maps review rules: staff review quotas and asking customers to mention an employee by name are now explicit violations, and the bans on review gating and on-site review kiosks were reinforced — with pre-publication screening backing enforcement. Combined with the FTC's fake-review rule ($51,744 per violation) and Google's 292-million-review purge, the message is uniform: any review program that filters, incentivizes, or scripts is now a liability.
By Duckhub TeamAug 1, 20264 min read
NewsMcDonald's Bets on AI Drive-Thru Again: ArchIQ Passes 1 Million Orders at 90% Automation
Two years after shutting down its IBM drive-thru experiment, McDonald's is back with ArchIQ — a Google Cloud-powered voice AI unveiled at its 2026 convention. The numbers behind the retry: 1 million+ test transactions, roughly 90% completed without a human stepping in, bilingual English/Spanish ordering, and Google Edge Cloud hardware going into US restaurants ahead of a nationwide rollout targeted for 2027. The industry lesson: drive-thru AI didn't die in 2024 — it went back to engineering.
By Duckhub TeamAug 1, 20264 min read
NewsSquare Turns On Restaurant Ordering Inside ChatGPT and Claude: Agentic Commerce Arrives
On July 1, 2026, Square switched on restaurant ordering inside ChatGPT and Claude: eligible US food & beverage sellers were auto-enrolled, AI assistants can read live menus and place orders routed into Square's ordering system, and the only cost is standard processing — no marketplace commission. With only 6% of restaurants taking orders via AI (NRA) and ~6 in 10 younger diners saying they'd order through an AI bot, the demand-readiness gap just became the industry's next race.
By Duckhub TeamJul 31, 20264 min read