Yelp Adds AI Calls for Restaurant Wait-Time Checks

Yelp is introducing Check for Me, a feature that lets an AI voice agent call a restaurant on a user’s behalf to ask about wait times, TechCrunch reported on October 20.

How Check for Me works

Users provide their party size and phone number. The agent calls the restaurant and texts the result back, helping the user decide whether to visit. A wait-time check is not the same as a table reservation.

Booking and assistant updates

Yelp is also adding OpenTable booking and expanding its assistant with memory, chat history, reminders and lists. Those changes extend the app beyond finding a business toward helping users act on what they discover.

Paid lead replies for businesses

A separate product, Smart Lead Reply, lets businesses use an agent to respond to inbound inquiries and qualify potential customers. It costs $30 per month.

The consumer calling feature and business reply tool serve different purposes: one gathers restaurant information for a user, while the other handles initial conversations with prospective customers.

Sources

TechCrunch: Yelp’s AI calling and assistant updates

Image credit: Yelp founder Jeremy Stoppelman and LeWeb founder Loic Le Meur, LeWeb 2013 — LeWeb14 on Flickr, CC BY 2.0, unmodified. Archival company-founder photo, not a Check for Me interface or launch-event image.