Yelp’s New AI Assistant Can Call Restaurants, Book Tables and Check Wait Times

Yelp announced an expansion of its AI-powered features today, introducing Check for Me, a voice agent that calls restaurants to check wait times and sends the results to customers by text. The update is part of the company's Fall 2026 Product Release, which also adds OpenTable reservations, personalized recommendations, scheduled reminders and weather information to Yelp Assistant.

Check for Me allows users to find out how long they might wait for a table without contacting the restaurant themselves. Customers enter their party size and phone number through the app, and Yelp's AI agent places the call on their behalf. The service then sends a text with the restaurant's current wait time, typically within minutes.

Yelp plans to introduce the feature over the coming months on eligible restaurant pages and within Yelp Assistant on iOS in the United States. It will initially support restaurants that accommodate walk-in customers.

The announcement follows Yelp's introduction of AI-powered voice services for restaurants and other businesses last year. While those tools were designed to handle incoming customer calls, Check for Me brings similar automation to consumers, allowing AI agents to initiate calls rather than simply answer them.

Yelp is also expanding its existing AI Assistant with an OpenTable integration that provides access to tens of thousands of restaurants across the United States. Users can search for dining options and select a reservation date, time and party size within the assistant on iOS, while OpenTable manages confirmations and reservation changes.

The assistant now supports Yelp Waitlist as well, allowing customers to join participating restaurants' queues before arriving. Once someone joins, the assistant monitors their status and provides updates when their table is available.

Beyond restaurant bookings, Yelp is introducing several personalization features designed to make its assistant more useful for recurring activities. A new tool called Keep Me Posted lets users schedule recommendations and reminders, such as weekly date-night suggestions or monthly lists of nearby hiking destinations. These updates arrive through push notifications and in-app alerts.

Yelp Assistant will also use previous conversations and review history to tailor its responses. For example, someone who has discussed vegetarian restaurants and reviewed dog-friendly coffee shops could receive suggestions combining those preferences. The company plans to incorporate additional activity, including past searches and saved businesses, into future recommendations.

Users can now revisit conversations from the previous 30 days, with access to their complete chat history expected in the coming weeks.

Another addition brings weather forecasts into the assistant's recommendations. If rain is expected, Yelp Assistant might suggest an indoor restaurant instead of an outdoor patio or help users choose a better day for a planned hike.

Yelp is separately introducing My Lists, a feature that allows users to organize local businesses into two categories: "Been Here" and "Want to Go." Customers can rank saved locations, add notes, filter businesses by category or cuisine, and share their lists with others.

Beginning next month, Yelp will use those saved locations and rankings to generate weekly personalized recommendations, which will appear in the app's home feed and My Lists section.

The company is also extending its AI capabilities to business owners through Smart Lead Reply, a paid service that automatically responds to customer inquiries, collects project information and helps qualify potential customers. Businesses can customize how the agent handles conversations, including which questions it asks and when it provides scheduling options.

Smart Lead Reply is scheduled to roll out next month for $30 per month to eligible service businesses using Yelp's Request a Quote feature.

The updates build on Yelp Assistant's existing restaurant discovery and booking capabilities, adding more ways for users to complete tasks directly through the platform. Check for Me is a particularly notable addition because it moves beyond providing recommendations or processing reservations, allowing Yelp's AI to contact a business and retrieve information on a customer's behalf.

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This analysis is based on reporting from Yelp & CNET.

Images courtesy of Yelp.

This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.