Yelp, the global crowd-sourced reviewing platform, has introduced new and improved AI tools to help consumers choose where to go. As AI continues to improve at a rapid pace, companies around the world are jumping on the hype train. And as Large Language Models (LLMs) are quite adept at reading through and summarizing large walls of text, it was only natural Yelp would implement them into its service. So the next time you open Yelp to find a nice restaurant in your area, you’ll have a helpful little AI guiding you.
What are these new Yelp AI tools?
Summarization isn’t the only thing Yelp is rolling out, though it is a major highlight. Yelp’s AI tools will be “revamping” the home feed, and showing you more relevant content. It is worth noting that all these exciting AI-powered changes are only coming to Yelp’s iOS app for the moment. Android users will have to wait an indeterminate amount of time before they get these features, if at all.
Alongside a better home feed, the Yelp app will also show users dishes most frequently searched for. The most exciting feature however, is using AI to summarize the experience one can expect at a restaurant. Yelp’s AI will parse through recent reviews of restaurants and give users a concise but informative summary. This summary will include what the food is like, what the atmosphere is like, what the best dishes are, and what you can expect to pay for them. This will drastically cut down the time Yelp users have to spend reading reviews themselves, enhancing and simplifying the whole process.
Separate tools for business owners
It’s not just the users getting access to Yelp’s AI tools. Separate tools specifically made for business and restaurant owners are being released as well. There will be a new “Yelp for Business” page that will share data with business owners. This data will include competitor analysis as well as letting owners know what is trending in what part of town among which demographic.
There is also an AI-powered tool for budgeting. Yelp claims this will help business owners maximize ROI and advertise the right highlights to the right people. Lastly, Yelp is introducing scheduled consultations with its customer support service for business owners. This, Yelp says, will streamline the process and not force business owners to remain on hold waiting for a representative.
Once thought the realm of science fiction, today consumers see AI-powered services revolutionizing business. Yelp’s new tools seems amazing, though the summarizations and recommendations still feed off of human data. And, as some have already pointed out, this human data isn’t always as reliable as one would hope.
2024-01-31 15:06:16