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Published on
October 21, 2025
5 min read
Yelp Makes AI Assistant More Conversational, Adds Menu Scanning Capabilities
In Focus
- Yelp has introduced several AI updates
- The upgrades includes an AI assistants for scanning menus
- Yelp AI assistant for menu scans helps people explore dishes in restaurants
Business review platform Yelp is introducing multiple AI-powered upgrades on October 21, 2025. According to TechCrunch, the updates include the Yelp AI assistant for menu scan. This AI tool can scan a physical menu and generate information about dishes.
Is Yelp’s AI Assistant Available for All Restaurant Menus?
For some time now, Yelp has been highlighting popular drinks and dishes on bar and restaurant pages. With the Yelp AI assistant scan menus feature, the review site will now highlight popular desserts on restaurant pages. The review website is leveraging technology to help people explore dishes in restaurants with ease.
Through Yelp’s AI assistant image recognition, users can use smartphone cameras to scan physical menus. The Yelp AI menu image recognition will generate overlay bubbles on different dishes. To view images of a dish and read reviews from other people, users should tap the bubble.
AI Assistants for Restaurants and Service Businesses
Yelp’s AI-assistant leverages the information available on a company’s website, page, photos, and reviews to generate responses. At the beginning of 2025, the review site previewed its AI-enabled voice agents for service and restaurant business. Its new AI assistant update makes these tools available to businesses.
Yelp’s AI assistant for restaurants can perform multiple tasks including:
- Responding to questions
- Taking bookings
- Changing restaurant reservations
- Handling special requests
The company also offers an AI receptionist for service businesses. The AI receptionist can:
- Collect project details
- Generate and send call summaries
- Assist with lead qualification
The review site is also expanding its AI-powered assistant to over 100 business categories. By doing so, Yelp will allow users to view top services offered in a business via the “most mentioned” section of the page.
Yelp Make Search More Conversational
Besides the Yelp AI assistant menu scan feature, the review website is boosting its search function with natural language and voice queries. It will also highlight popular offerings on business pages, including clothing stores, hair salons, parks, and auto shops.
The review site is doing this by displaying questions on business pages. These questions are based on frequently asked questions. According to Yelp, its AI assistant will recall user preferences and customize recommendations.
This move is very similar to the one taken by Meta. Earlier this month, the social media giant said it will personalize ads and content based on user interactions with its AI tools starting December 2025. Yelp said its AI-powered app will support conversational queries through voice search. With the latest update, users can type questions in natural language directly into the search box.
The current Yelp AI assistant update comes with additional features, which include AI generated videos compiling user photos and restaurant information. Other new features include expanded video uploads, visual summary of restaurants and bars, before and after images for service businesses, and a section for planning future projects.
Key Highlights of Yelp’s AI assistant for Menu Scan
- Yelp AI assistant uses image recognition to scan menus
- Users can scan physical menus with smartphone cameras
- Yelp AI assistant generates overlay bubbles on different dishes
- Users tap bubble to view dishes and read reviews
- Yelp offers AI assistants for restaurants and service businesses
Responding to Growing Competition
Yelp is increasingly facing competition from companies such as Kea and Square that offer AI-powered assistants for order management and restaurants.
The company is also facing competition from prominent players like ChatGPT and Perplexity following the rise of chat-style search tools. Last month, OpenAI added an agentic shopping system called Instant Checkout on its chatbot, ChatGPT.
However, Yelp’s largest competitor is Google, which has included AI assistants in its search function. Last year, Yelp sued Google for self-referencing customer reviews in local search illegally. According to the review site, Google prioritizes its reviews over those of competitors.
With the latest update, the review site is seeking to make search more conversational and visual. Yelp unveiled an AI-powered assistant to help users connect with appropriate services by describing their problem in 2024. The review site applies similar technology to respond to questions about other types of businesses, including restaurants, bars, retailers, and local attractions.
