A call between two agents
Last year, Yelp introduced a voice solution for restaurants and service providers. Check for Me turns that capability toward diners: instead of calling themselves, users can ask Yelp’s agent to make the call.
But the restaurant may have an AI agent of its own. Yelp says the two agents could end up in a conversation that does not go to plan. That is a small feature with a revealing edge: automating a phone call is only useful if both sides can handle the exchange.
More than a restaurant search
Yelp is also updating the assistant it uses to help people find restaurants and services. An OpenTable integration will let users book a table without leaving the app. The assistant will remember preferences mentioned in earlier chats, and users can already open their chat history from the past 30 days; a full archive is planned for later.
Users will also be able to ask the chatbot to create reminders, such as sending weekend activity ideas every Friday. Yelp plans to introduce two starter lists, “Been there” and “Want to go,” with options to filter places by location, category and cuisine, reorder entries, add notes and share lists.
Next month, Yelp will begin showing weekly personalized recommendations based on saved places and user ratings. Later this year, the company plans to bring collections into lists, redesign the lists tab and add map browsing.
A paid agent for businesses
The business-facing launch is Smart Lead Reply, a paid product that can respond to customers and keep the conversation going to assess whether an inquiry is promising. Business owners can set rules for how the agent communicates with customers. The service will cost $30 a month. Meta and other companies also offer AI tools for small businesses handling incoming inquiries.
I think the contrast is the more interesting part of Yelp’s rollout: diners get help deciding where to go, while businesses are asked to pay for an agent that qualifies leads. The announcement leaves open how well either side handles an interaction when the customer’s agent meets the business’s. That question matters more than the number of tasks the assistant can take on.
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