OpenTable has launched a new AI-driven assistant to provide diners with quick access to information about more than 60,000 restaurants in its network.
The Concierge assistant assists users in locating restaurants, recommending dishes and offering insights into the overall dining experience, including help with dietary needs.
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The tool leverages OpenTable’s comprehensive data, which encompasses menus, reviews and restaurant descriptions, along with technology from Perplexity and OpenAI.
Concierge is currently integrated into each restaurant’s profile, with plans to enable reservations to be made in the future.
Research conducted by OpenTable indicates that 54% of Americans look up information about a restaurant before making a reservation, spending an average of 21 minutes on this process.
27% of respondents reported not booking a restaurant due to challenges in finding relevant information online, while 17% chose not to book because they could not obtain the necessary details without contacting the restaurant directly.
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By GlobalDataCommon inquiries from diners include questions about opening hours (46%), menu details (39%) and restaurant addresses (22%).
The assistant is designed to address these queries, thereby reducing the time spent by both diners and restaurants on information retrieval.
OpenTable chief technology officer Sagar Mehta stated: “Today’s diners are extremely savvy, and oftentimes they want to know exactly what to order and whether specific needs can be met before they ever step through the door. Concierge makes that effortless.
“For restaurants, this may help turn browsers into bookers and alleviate the amount of time spent fielding questions that diners can now answer on their own.”
The introduction of Concierge reflects OpenTable’s focus on AI technology through partnerships and integrations. These include collaborations with OpenAI for its Operator research preview, Microsoft’s Copilot, Amazon’s Alexa+ and Perplexity, all aimed at facilitating restaurant discovery and reservation processes.
To support restaurants in managing customer inquiries at all hours, OpenTable has partnered with voice AI platforms Slang AI and PolyAI, and utilises autonomous agents via Salesforce Agentforce to enhance service for both diners and restaurants.
Mehta concluded: “For restaurants, OpenTable’s commitment to AI can help fill seats and drive meaningful efficiencies for routine tasks; for diners, AI meets them where they are, whether researching or booking, and making the overall experience much more frictionless.”
