Key updates from Yelp’s 2026 Spring Product Release:
- The new AI-powered Yelp Assistant is redefining local discovery and helping you get things done by delivering reliable answers, recommendations, and seamless booking—from restaurant reservations to service appointments—all in one conversation.
- New integrations with Vagaro, Zocdoc, and Calendly make it easier to book, schedule, and order directly through Yelp.
- AI-powered Menu Vision is more visual and detail-rich, bringing menus to life so you can decide what to order with confidence.
AI is now at the core of the Yelp experience. With this release, we’re taking the next major step in Yelp’s AI transformation. By combining our foundation of authentic, human-generated content with advanced AI, we’re delivering a more conversational and personalized Yelp, empowering you to make confident decisions and get things done with ease.
First, we’re excited to introduce the new Yelp Assistant: your AI-powered conversational chatbot that understands your needs, offers trusted recommendations, and helps you complete tasks. For the first time ever, you can ask Yelp Assistant anything across every business category, get instant answers, and easily reserve tables, book appointments, or request quotes.
Yelp Assistant is among more than 35 features and updates we’re announcing in our Spring Product Release. New partner integrations with Vagaro, Zocdoc, and Calendly allow you to seamlessly take action, and an upgraded Menu Vision makes it easier to decide what to order.
The new Yelp Assistant: Your local guide for getting things done
The way you discover local businesses on Yelp is evolving. The new Yelp Assistant is built to deliver reliable answers and recommendations, while helping you complete tasks—all in one conversation. Rather than browsing search results, simply describe what you’re looking for, even if it’s complex or highly specific, and it will surface the most relevant options for you. From there, Yelp Assistant makes it easy to go from getting answers and recommendations to getting things done—whether you’re reserving a table, ordering delivery or takeout, requesting a price quote, or booking an appointment—serving as your trusted assistant for all things local.
First introduced in 2024 as an AI chatbot to help you hire service pros and later expanded to answer questions about individual businesses, Yelp Assistant is becoming the center of the app experience. Through a dedicated new “Assistant” tab, Yelp Assistant now works across every category on Yelp to address all your local needs.
Every answer is powered by Yelp’s authentic, in-depth community content—hundreds of millions of reviews, photos, and detailed business information contributed by real people. We know how important this is. In a recent survey we conducted with Morning Consult, nearly three out of four people said they want to see ratings and reviews from real customers when using AI search tools to find local businesses.
You can ask about “birthday dinner spots with vegan options and heated outdoor seating,” “top-rated gyms with group classes and childcare,” or get help planning an afternoon with your friends in a new city. Yelp Assistant delivers tailored recommendations with clear explanations of why each business is a fit, surfacing relevant user reviews, highlighting star ratings, and summarizing helpful details that matter to your search. You can ask follow-up questions about any business, refine your search, and tap into any business’s full reviews, photos, and business page to learn more.
For the first time, Yelp Assistant goes beyond answering questions by helping you take action. Once you’ve found the right business, Yelp Assistant can initiate a reservation, start a quote request, or begin booking an appointment, guiding you through each step while handling the heavy lifting:
- Reserve a table at thousands of restaurants that use Yelp Guest Manager for table booking and soon join a waitlist.
- Order takeout or delivery through DoorDash, Yelp’s preferred partner, as well as Grubhub, and more—from more than half a million restaurants.
- Request a quote from professionals across more than 450 categories—including home, local, auto, beauty, pet, and event services.
- Make beauty, wellness, and fitness appointments through Vagaro on iOS, a leading salon, spa, and fitness marketplace.
- Schedule healthcare visits through Zocdoc on iOS, the healthcare access platform that connects patients to great care.
- Book appointments with RepairPal-certified auto shops, the largest network of trusted auto repair facilities.
- This summer, you’ll also be able to schedule appointments with eligible service pros through scheduling platform, Calendly, simplifying how you get your projects done.
The new Yelp Assistant is available on iOS and Android through the new “Assistant” tab and on eligible business pages, including restaurants, retail shops, and attractions, with expansion to all business pages and desktop coming later this year. Stay tuned for more updates to come—we’re continuing to enhance Yelp Assistant to help you better compare options, receive even more personalized recommendations, manage multiple projects at once, complete additional tasks, and more.
New Integrations: Book, order, and schedule directly on Yelp
Now when you find the right business, it’s easier than ever to take the next step right from Yelp—whether you’re booking a beauty appointment, scheduling a visit with a doctor, or setting up a consultation with a service pro. New integrations with Vagaro, Zocdoc, and Calendly, as well as enhancements to existing integrations—including expanding our DoorDash integration to Canadian restaurants—simplify getting things done on Yelp.
Menu Vision: See the dishes before you order
Originally released last October to bring menus to life with AI, augmented reality, and text recognition, Menu Vision is even more visual and detail-rich, making it easier to see what’s on the menu and decide what to order. Now, when you scan a menu with your camera, images of the dish instantly appear over the menu with its name, the number of related reviews and photos, and a “Popular” badge for standout items. Tap any dish, drink, or dessert to see all available photos and relevant reviews for popular items, giving you even more confidence in your next order.
We’ve made it even easier to find the dishes you’re craving by improving how we match photos to menus, expanding our menu coverage using both photos and reviews, and boosting menu accuracy with AI that recognizes more dish names and synonyms. Menu Vision also displays helpful on-screen guidance as you scan the menu and can process QR code menus on iOS: just point your camera to explore the restaurant’s full digital menu. Menu Vision is available on iOS and Android. You can access it from the business’s media gallery on Yelp or from the business page under the menu section.
A more AI-powered, personalized, and visual Yelp
We’re bringing you new ways to make discovery and sharing on Yelp effortless. Our redesigned home feed now uses advanced AI to serve up more personalized content, trending spots, and immersive videos tailored to your tastes. Plus, natural language photo search on business pages and smarter photo ranking help you quickly see the best of what local businesses offer.
Our Spring Product Release marks the next major step in Yelp’s AI transformation. By combining authentic human content with advanced AI, we are making every interaction more conversational and personal—from discovering the best of your community to getting things done. With the new Yelp Assistant, integrated scheduling and ordering, and more, we’re redefining how people connect with great local businesses. Plus, new AI-powered updates for business owners and enhancements to ads are helping local businesses operate more efficiently and spend their time where it matters most. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to transform Yelp with AI.
