Yelp’s updated AI assistant can answer questions and book a restaurant or service in a single conversation

For years, existing consumer platforms have tried to keep users within their app by offering additional services. After the rise of AI chatbot, the trend is for people to use the assistant for both questions and actions without leaving the flow of the conversation. With its latest update, Yelp lets people ask questions, find restaurant reservations, order food, and book service professionals, all through its updated AI assistant.

The company released an AI assistant in 2024 to help people search for different services based on their problem. It now uses platform data paired with an AI assistant to allow users to multitask.

In a demo seen by TechCrunch, the company’s SVP of product, Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, looked for hiking spots to walk the dog off-leash; checked out places on the way, with the option to place an order on Doordash; looked up restaurant recommendations for the weekend program, with the option to check availability and reserve a table; and asked about painting a new Victorian house for friends without leaving the conversation.

“We really want consumers to rediscover Yelp as a place where they can ask questions and get answers, not only that, but also complete an action. That’s Yelp rediscovering from a review platform to a response and action platform,” he told TechCrunch on the phone. “The other investment we are making will be in that direction.”

Users can select a specific restaurant or service page by clicking on it, or ask additional questions about the business. Yelp said that since the information is based on the business information on the platform, the business website, and user reviews, there is less chance of getting wrong answers.

The company has hosted the assistant in a new tab in the application, now placed in the center of the bottom navigation bar, so users are likely to visit it more often. Assistant will be available on iOS and Android at launch and will work with relevant business pages, including restaurants, shops, and attractions. The company said a desktop version and rollout to all types of businesses is planned for later in the year.

In addition to retrieving information, Yelp also announced integration with external providers to complete an action, such as making an order or making an appointment. Users can now order food with DoorDash and Grubhub, book fitness or beauty appointments with Vagaro, see a doctor with ZocDoc, and get a car repaired with Repairpal. Also, it also offers Calendar integration for other types of businesses that allow for appointment booking.

Notably, all these actions will lead you to the application of a certain provider or page, which means that this is not an “agent” in nature, where all transactions are completed within the dialog window. Kuduvalli said that while retargeting is the way Yelp is set up now, it may “not always be that way” in the future.

However, it’s hard to say how agent pipelines might work with other services in situations where the user doesn’t specify whether they want to order food through DoorDash or Grubhub.

Besides the new AI assistant, Yelp is rolling out several quality-of-life updates to the app. Last year, it introduced the ability for people to scan the menu and see what the dishes look like through photos posted by other users. Now, users can look for those dishes within the app as they scan the menu.

In addition, Yelp said users will be able to search a business’s media gallery using natural language queries instead of keywords. Also, the company will provide an AI-powered tagging feature and combine before and after photos for business owners to avoid manual work.