Yelp’s updated AI assistant can answer questions and make restaurant or service reservations in one conversation.

For years, existing consumer platforms have been trying to keep users within their apps by offering more services. Since the advent of AI chatbots, people are increasingly using assistants for both queries and tasks without leaving the conversation flow. With the latest update, Yelp now has updated AI assistants that allow people to ask questions, take restaurant reservations, order food delivery, and book service professionals.

The company is introducing an AI assistant in 2024 to help people search for different services based on their problems. We are now using platform data combined with AI assistants to help users do more.

In a demo seen by TechCrunch, Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, the company’s SVP of product, searched for hiking spots where he could take his dog without a leash. Along the way, we found a takeout place that had the option to order from Doordash. We found restaurant recommendations for your weekend plans, along with the option to check availability and reserve a table. Without leaving the chat, I asked a question about painting my friend’s new Victorian house.

“We really want consumers to re-think Yelp as a place not only to ask questions and get answers, but also to complete actions. That’s Yelp’s reinvention from a review platform to a platform for answers and actions,” he told TechCrunch. “Some of the investments we’re making will be in that direction.”

Users can tap on specific pages for a restaurant or service to select them or ask more questions about the business. Yelp said there’s little chance of getting a wrong answer because its knowledge is based on business details, business websites and user reviews on the platform.

The company is hosting the assistant in a new tab in the app, which is now centered on the bottom navigation bar, making it more likely that users will visit it more often. The assistant will be available for iOS and Android at launch and will work for any business, including restaurants, retail stores, and attractions. The company said a desktop version and launch for all types of businesses are scheduled for later this year.

In addition to pulling information, Yelp also announced integrations with external providers to complete tasks like placing orders or appointments. Users can now order food through DoorDash and Grubhub, schedule fitness or beauty appointments through Vagaro, doctor appointments through ZocDoc, and car repairs through Repairpal. We also offer Calendly integration for other types of businesses that allow for appointment scheduling.

In particular, all of these actions link to apps or pages from a specific provider. This means that they are not essentially “agents” where the entire transaction is completed within the chat window. Kuduvalli noted that while redirects are the way Yelp is set up now, they may not “stay that way” in the future.

However, if users don’t specify whether they want to order food through DoorDash or Grubhub, it’s hard to say how the agent pipeline might work with other services.

In addition to the new AI assistant, Yelp is also rolling out several quality-of-life updates to the app. Last year, it launched a feature that lets people scan menus and see what dishes look like through photos posted by other users. Users can now view those dishes within the app as they scan the menu.

Additionally, users will be able to search a company’s media gallery using natural language queries instead of keywords, Yelp said. The company will also provide business owners with AI-based tagging and grouping features for before and after photos to avoid manual work.