Yelp Check for Me: AI agent will phone restaurants about waits

Yelp Check for Me is an AI phone agent that will ring a restaurant on a diner's behalf, ask how long the wait is and text the answer back, the San Francisco-based company announced on 20 October in its fall product release.

The feature is one of more than 30 new features, integrations and updates in the package. A user taps "Check wait time now" on an eligible restaurant page, or asks Yelp Assistant, enters a party size and a phone number, and the agent places the call. Yelp says the reply arrives by text within minutes. The rollout starts "in the coming months", in the United States and on iOS only.

What Yelp Check for Me means for the host stand

When the diner's agent calls the restaurant's agent, nobody at the door has to pick up.

For restaurants, the change lands on the phone by the door. The calls go to the venue's own number, and somebody has to pick up. Yelp's announcement does not say how restaurants qualify as "eligible", whether they can opt out or how the agent introduces itself on the line.

There is an irony Yelp has built itself. Since October 2025 the company has sold restaurants Yelp Host, an AI agent that answers guest calls and gives current wait times, for $149 a month, or $99 for Guest Manager customers. TechCrunch notes that a diner's agent may end up talking to a restaurant's agent, and that agent-to-agent conversations can break down. Two machines negotiating a table for four is now a plausible Friday night.

Voice AI is spreading through restaurant bookings, from Aiello's voice AI for hotel restaurant bookings to Square's AI kiosk that takes voice orders.

Yelp Assistant books through OpenTable and remembers preferences

Yelp Assistant, the company's chatbot, now connects to OpenTable, which Yelp says opens booking at tens of thousands of restaurants nationwide on iOS. Combined with Yelp Reservations, DoorDash and Grubhub, the assistant reaches more than half a million restaurants, according to the company. It will also remember preferences from earlier conversations and keep 30 days of chat history.

For service professionals, Yelp adds Smart Lead Reply, an AI agent that answers quote requests and qualifies leads, at $30 a month from November, for categories such as movers, plumbers and electricians. About 10% of Request a Quote submissions came through Yelp Assistant in the second quarter, Yelp says. Chief product officer Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh called the release "the next step" towards a more personalised Yelp.

Yelp has given no date for Android or for markets outside the US. Until then, the phone at the host stand remains a human job, at least at one end of the line.