Yelp Rolls Out Generative AI Features to Summarize Business Reviews
Yelp has unveiled more than 20 new features in its Winter Product Release, including some powered by generative AI. The review aggregator is leveraging large language models (LLMs) to produce business summaries with quick overviews of locations on their Yelp pages, as wel as curate the homepage view for Yelp’s mobile app users.
Yelp AI
The generative AI models writing short overviews of businesses highlight key details like amenities, service quality, and menu highlights, helping users easily find businesses matching their needs. With tens of millions of reviews, photos, and videos contributed to Yelp just last year, there’s plenty of information for the LLM to work with in describing the highlights of a business and what people might like to know about it. Meanwhile, Yelp’s new home feed for iOS employs AI to surface relevant photos, collections, and videos from nearby businesses to aid discovery and inspire users to contribute high-quality content. The feature is expected to launch on Android in the coming months.
“For years, we’ve leveraged AI to help reduce consumers’ decision paralysis — from spotlighting the most popular dishes and drinks, to using LLMs to power review highlights for more nuanced searches,” Yelp chief product officer Craig Saldanha explained in a blog post. “Now, new AI-powered business summaries leverage LLMs to parse recent reviews and describe what you can expect at the business, helping you quickly find a business that fits your needs at a glance. At the top of restaurant, food and nightlife business pages, these unique summaries highlight what the business is best known for based on first-hand reviews from users — such as the atmosphere, service, amenities, value, or a popular dish. AI-powered business summaries are available on iOS and will roll out to Android and desktop later this year.
On the business side, Yelp is also turning to AI to help business owners. For instance, the improved onboarding experience for advertisers incorporates an AI-driven budget recommendation outline based on neural networks and potential return on investment. Generative AI’s place in commerce is on the rise, and not just for direct shopping on Amazon and Walmart. For example, Etsy is using generative AI to help people brainstorm gift ideas; Amazon also uses LLMs to publish summaries of product reviews; Mozilla’s Fake Spot-based shopping assistant discerns real reviews from fake; and Mastercard’s Muse personalizes shopping suggestions and is supposed to inspire purchases indirectly.
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