AI for all
Tech companies from DoorDash to Yelp are hyping new AI-driven features.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman seems happy. This year, his longtime nemesis, Google, was declared an illegal monopoly by a federal judge. About a month later, Yelp sued Google claiming the search giant limits consumer choice and prioritizes its own local search products. This makes it increasingly hard for companies like Yelp to compete, the company said.
“Our case is about Google, the largest information gatekeeper in existence, putting its heavy thumb on the scale to stifle competition and keep consumers within its own walled garden,” he wrote in a company blog post.
It was hard, as I wrote at the time, not to read straight through these words to Stoppelman’s glee. But a Google defeat is only part of the opportunity he sees for Yelp. The other part, as he explained during the company’s third quarter earnings call in November, is new AI-driven entrants into the search business that are poised to challenge Google as the dominant internet search provider in the future.
He’s talking, obviously, about companies like OpenAI and Perplexity that are developing robust search products, using artificial intelligence to generate relevant search results. For what it’s worth, Google has admitted that these companies are viable competitors, issuing them subpoenas as part of the remedies phase of its antitrust trial where a judge decides what to do with this illegal monopoly.
Stoppelman seems eager to help these bourgeoning companies grow. “Our door is open as far as licensing. We obviously have APIs that we can bring to bear for companies that are pursuing this,” he said on the call. Later, he hawked Yelp’s reviews, its cache of relevant business information like locations and opening hours, and what he deems most important to a search company, Yelp’s reputation information about individual businesses.
This is just one example of how restaurant-adjacent tech companies will work with generative AI to their advantage. There are more.
Both Toast, a point of sale and payments system, and SevenRooms, a reservations and customer relationship management platform, unveiled new products that use generative AI to market restaurants. Toast’s helps restaurants create marketing campaigns, like emails, for guests. SevenRooms uses AI to help craft personalized text messages to guests, encouraging them to book a table or attend an event. When they do, the platform tracks that action, which means the company can deliver, in startling detail, exactly which messages are driving diners to walk through the door.
And in one of my favorite developments of the year, a host of companies now offer restaurants voice AI that can answer the phone, a technology that saves time for employees and helps keep guests happy with a constant supply of helpful information. (The newsletter featuring San Francisco restaurant Flour + Water’s phone bot, named Harina, and built by a local company, is also one of my favorite editions of the year.)
Artificial intelligence will continue to change the restaurant tech business, probably in ways I have not yet anticipated.
There are a lot of unknowns about how this emerging and rapidly developing technology will change our lives and work. I am hopeful that AI won’t replace journalists like me, or continue to contribute to a whole lot of viral, garbled sludge on platforms like LinkedIn. (A girl can dream.)
For restaurants, I’m most excited about AI’s promise to send relevant and personalized messages, marketing, and even phone calls to guests, deepening the restaurant-diner relationship. Can generative AI perform hospitality? It seems to be getting close.
