A pleasing feminine voice greets me on the cellphone. “Hi, I’m an assistant named Jasmine for Bodega,” the voice says. “How can I enable you?”
“Do you’ve gotten patio seating?” I ask. Jasmine seems just a little unhappy as she tells me that the Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco sadly doesn’t have out of doors seating. But her disappointment isn’t the results of a foul day. Rather, her tone is a characteristic, a setting.
Jasmine is a member of a brand new and rising clan: the AI restaurant voice host. If you’ve lately known as a restaurant in New York City, Miami, Atlanta, or San Francisco, likelihood is you’ve spoken to one in every of Jasmine’s well mannered and calculating rivals.
In the ocean of AI voice assistants, hospitality cellphone brokers have not gotten as a lot consideration as consumer-based generative AI instruments like Gemini Live and ChatGPT-4o. And but, the area of interest is heating up, with a number of rising startups competing for restaurant accounts within the U.S. Last May, AI for Voice Ordering It has attracted a lot of attention on the National Restaurant Association’s annual meals truthful. Bodega, the upscale Vietnamese restaurant I known as, used Maitre-D AI, launching primarily within the Bay Area in 2024. Neuroone other new startup, is presently launching its software program in a number of Silicon Valley eating places. A 12 months RestoHost now solutions calls at 150 eating places within the Atlanta metro space, and Slang, a voice AI firm that started focusing solely on eating places in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, and announced a $20 million funding spherical in 2023, is gaining traction within the New York and Las Vegas markets.
All supply an identical service: a 24-hour AI cellphone host who can reply basic questions in regards to the restaurant’s costume code, delicacies, seating plan, and meals allergy insurance policies. They also can assist make, change, or cancel a reservation. In some instances, the agent can direct the caller to an actual human, however in response to RestoHost cofounder Tomas Lopez-Saavedra, solely 10 p.c of calls find yourself with that. Each platform presents eating places subscription tiers that unlock further options, and a few of the programs can communicate a number of languages.
But who calls a restaurant within the age of Google and Resy? According to a few of the founders of AI voice host startups, many diners do, and for varied causes. “Restaurants get a excessive quantity of calls in comparison with different companies, particularly in the event that they’re fashionable and take reservations,” says Alex Sambvani, CEO and cofounder of Slang, which presently works with everybody from the Wolfgang Puck restaurant group to Chick-fil-A to fast-casual chain Slutty Vegan. Sambvani estimates that the preferred companies get between 800 and 1,000 calls a month. Typical callers are usually last-minute bookers, vacationers and guests, older folks, and people operating errands whereas driving.
Matt Ho, the proprietor of Bodega San Franciscoconfirms this situation. “The telephones have been continuously ringing throughout service,” he says. “We have been getting calls with fundamental questions that you will discover on our web site.” To resolve this drawback, after a buying journey, Ho discovered that Maitre-D was the very best resolution. Bodega SF turned one of many startup’s first clients in May, and Ho even helped the founders with trial and error assessments earlier than launching. “This platform makes it simpler for the host and doesn’t disturb the friends whereas they’re having fun with their meal,” he says.
