• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Today

Yelp introduced a series of updates to its assistant on Tuesday -- including a new integration with OpenTable, the ability to set customized reminders, more personalized recommendations, and what the company calls "smarter interactions."

After reading about all the updates Yelp announced today, I kept thinking could Yelp become the OpenAI ChatGPT or Google Gemini of service-focused apps. 

More than 30 features--that's how many Yelp rolled out today from integrations and updates, to ways people can discover, decide, and get things done.

“This release marks the next step in our journey to transform Yelp into an intelligent, more personalized experience that effortlessly adapts to each user’s individual needs," said Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, chief product officer at Yelp.

During the past few years, Yelp has been changing the way people connect with local businesses as it moves beyond search toward AI experiences that understand what people want and help them to get it done.

The assistant is now available in more locations across the app, including search pages and the search bar on iOS and Android. 

Soon it will have the ability to draw from a user's prior Yelp searches, preferences, saved businesses and other app activity for more personalized answers.

Yelp Assistant now saves a user's recent chats summarized by topic, so it can refer to any prior conversation like ChatGPT.

Chats will remain available from the past 30 days, with full history unless deleted expected to roll out in the coming weeks.

Users will see timely and trending prompts when opening the Yelp Assistant, with more personalized information. The feature will roll out over time, and intends to make the tool more personalize and tailored to events and activities nearby.

Yelp's assistant will get smarter as it becomes more knowledgeable about the user's likes and dislikes. It will enable the technology to customize reminders, send more personalized responses, and chat history to help users better plan and discover new places to spend money.

A new "Keep Me Posted" feature allows users to schedule reminders with curated recommendations.

Yelp Assistant can send information such as new ideas for date nights every Wednesday when asked, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. It can also list nearby dog-friendly hikes once a month, or provide an ongoing checklist about home projects that need to get done.

Yelp Assistant has become more personalized through updates that pull in information from a user's Yelp activity list, such as past conversations with the assistant.

It reviews the search history and uses it to suggest relevant follow-up prompts. It creates a personalized framework to build a contextual memory of preferences. 

Beyond local discoveries for consumers, Yelp has also released a new set of AI-powered tools to help business owners stand out and attract more customers, win leads, schedule jobs, and strengthen customer relationships.

Whether automating lead messaging, integrating scheduling tools, or delivering smarter advertising, these updates help businesses spend less time on busywork and more time serving customers.

On Tuesday, Yelp also launched new ways for advertisers to reach consumers with custom creative, and new tools that make conversion tracking and attribution easier.