OpenTable, a global leader in restaurant tech, has debuted ‘Concierge,’ a generative AI-powered assistant designed to give diners instant insights into more than 60,000 restaurants on its network. The launch deepens OpenTable’s continued investment in AI to support restaurants and diners.
From helping diners figure out how to get to a restaurant, to suggesting what to order and offering a sense of what to expect from the overall experience – including guidance for dietary preferences or restrictions – Concierge works like a helpful, in-the-know friend who’s done all the homework. The assistant is embedded within each restaurant profile, and in the future, will be able to book reservations on behalf of a diner.
Concierge helps solve a real need for diners and restaurants alike. With just a few prompts, diners can move from uncertainty to confident decision-making, which for restaurants means a better chance of capturing the booking. According to new consumer research conducted by OpenTable:
- Forty-nine per cent of Canadians often research a restaurant before booking, and those that do spend around 17 minutes doing so, using precious time out of the day.
- Twenty-one per cent of Canadians have decided not to book a restaurant because finding the right information online was too difficult, while 18 per cent decided not to book because they couldn’t find the details they needed and didn’t want to call or email the restaurant. That’s revenue lost to the restaurant.
- Diners look to contact restaurants for more information on opening hours (48 per cent), to know more about menu items (41 per cent), and to find out the address (25 per cent). Answering these questions easily via Concierge, in the same place where booking happens, frees up time for both diners and restaurants.
“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,” said Sagar Mehta, CTO of OpenTable. “For restaurants, this helps convert browsers into bookers and can alleviate the amount of time spent fielding questions that diners can now answer on their own.”
Concierge is powered by OpenTable’s comprehensive restaurant data from menus, reviews, and descriptions, plus Perplexity and OpenAI APIs.
The launch of Concierge underscores OpenTable’s deepened commitment to AI-powered innovation through strategic partnerships, integrations and proprietary tools. These include integrations and collaborations with OpenAI for its Operator research preview and Perplexity to help diners discover restaurants through natural language prompts and confidently make reservations. To help restaurants answer every diner call 24/7, OpenTable partners with leading voice AI platforms Slang.ai and PolyAI and deploys autonomous agents via Salesforce Agentforce to enhance customer service for both restaurants and diners.
“For restaurants, OpenTable’s commitment to AI helps fill seats and drive meaningful efficiencies for routine tasks; for diners, AI meets them where they are, whether researching or booking, and can make the overall experience much more frictionless,” Mehta concludes.
