Yelp can now call on your behalf to check wait times at a restaurant

You can now offload calling restaurants to check wait times to an AI agent, saving you the time of making the call yourself.

Yelp has launched a new feature called "Check for Me" that allows users to have an AI agent call restaurants on their behalf to inquire about wait times. Users input their party size and phone number into the Yelp app, and the AI agent handles the call, texting the wait time information back to the user. This feature builds upon Yelp's previous introduction of voice solutions for businesses and expands its AI capabilities to the consumer side of the discovery platform. The company is also enhancing its Yelp AI assistant with OpenTable integration for booking, improved personalization, chat history access, custom reminders, and list-building functionalities. Additionally, Yelp is introducing a paid product, Smart Lead Reply, for businesses at $30 per month, enabling AI-powered customer lead qualification and engagement, following a trend seen from other companies like Meta.

Yelp's integration of an AI agent for checking wait times signifies a broader industry trend towards using AI to automate routine customer interactions. This move by Yelp, a major discovery platform, suggests that AI-driven customer service is becoming a standard expectation, potentially pressuring competitors to adopt similar functionalities. The potential for agent-to-agent communication breakdown also highlights an emerging challenge in AI deployment that will need resolution as these systems become more prevalent.

The introduction of Smart Lead Reply for businesses, priced at $30 per month, indicates Yelp's strategy to monetize its AI advancements beyond consumer features. This paid offering aims to capture small businesses looking to streamline customer engagement, a segment that Meta and other tech giants are also actively targeting. The success of these AI-powered services could reshape how businesses manage customer inquiries and lead generation on platforms like Yelp.