Yelp has rolled out a new AI-powered tool aimed at helping diners understand restaurant menus better by letting users scan a printed menu with their phone camera and tap on items to see what the dish looks like and what other diners say about it. The feature—designed to make choosing what to order more visual and informed—uses optical character recognition to identify menu items, overlay interactive bubbles on the menu image, and link each item to user-submitted photos and reviews from Yelp’s database.
Beyond menu scanning, Yelp’s AI assistant has been expanded: users can now pose conversational queries about restaurants and other local businesses—asking things like “which dish here is best for vegetarians?” or “what’s the dog-friendly seating like?” The assistant draws on the business’s page content, reviews, photos, and website to return evidence-based answers rather than generic responses. Meanwhile, Yelp is also rolling out voice-search support so users can speak queries like “find a dessert here that people rave about” and get instant recommendations.
On the business side, Yelp is introducing what it calls “Popular Offerings” which surfaces the most frequently mentioned dishes, services or treatments for more than 100 business categories—so a salon page might highlight the haircut style most booked, or a restaurant might show its most-mentioned dessert. The menu-scanning feature (sometimes referred to internally as “Menu Vision”) is available now on Yelp’s mobile apps in supported markets.
The move reflects Yelp’s strategy of turning its massive trove of review content, images and business data into real-time, interactive tools rather than static listings. It also pushes the company further into AI-enhanced discovery—allowing users to browse not just by text or review counts, but by visual clues and context embedded in everyday objects like printed menus. For restaurateurs, it offers a fresh angle in how diners see and interact with their offerings, which may influence menu design, photography and review responses moving forward.
