AI-powered Yelp now offers personalized restaurant scores

Yelp is rolling out AI-powered features to help users make quicker dining decisions by analyzing and scoring reviews across multiple categories, marking a significant evolution in how the platform presents user-generated content.

Major feature launch: Yelp’s new “Review Insights” feature uses artificial intelligence to analyze user reviews and generate numerical scores for different aspects of a business experience.

• The system evaluates user sentiment around key factors like food quality, service quality, and ambiance
• Scores range from 1 to 100 and are classified as positive, neutral, or critical
• Users can tap on individual aspects to see detailed scores and access specific reviews that contributed to each rating

Technical implementation: The feature leverages large language models (LLMs) to understand and interpret user reviews in a more sophisticated way than traditional keyword analysis.

• According to Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha, the AI can identify relevant topics and sentiment even when they’re not explicitly mentioned in reviews
• The system demonstrates contextual understanding by inferring meaning from the overall content of reviews
• This technology represents a significant advancement in how review platforms can process and present user-generated content

Platform availability: The initial rollout of Review Insights follows a targeted approach focused on specific categories and platforms.

• The feature is currently only available on iOS devices
• Initial implementation covers restaurants, food establishments, and nightlife businesses
• Expansion to the services category is planned for 2024

Additional platform updates: Yelp is implementing several other changes to enhance user experience and discovery.

• The iOS home feed now includes user videos and reviews with photos of recent experiences
• A new trending businesses feature pulls from Yelp’s top lists
• A trending searches feature shows popular local search terms, with Android implementation planned for early 2024

Future implications: As AI-powered review analysis becomes more sophisticated, this development could signal a broader shift in how review platforms present information to users, potentially leading to more standardized and objective ways of evaluating businesses while reducing the time users spend reading individual reviews.