Yelp today launched its end-of-year update. And it’s heavy on AI. Specifically, the company is positioning large language models to better connect consumers and local businesses. Its 20 new features also include a new lead-flow management tool and paid-ad optimization engine for local businesses.
The centerpiece of these updates is new features in Yelp Assistant, the conversational AI agent launched earlier this year to guide users through the process of finding a local pro. For example, if you’re looking for a landscaper, the agent will ask several questions to qualify your project and recommend a pro.
The newest features in Yelp Assistant include being able to send quote requests via text. There are also updates that make Yelp Assistant more conversational, as opposed to keyword-driven. This plays into a growing trend, led by the likes of ChatGPT, to train users how to find things using natural language.
“This year has been marked by an accelerated pace of product innovation,” Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha told us. “By harnessing the power of AI with our vast trove of user-generated content, we’ve focused on enhancing the platform for all our users, connecting [them] with great local businesses.”
Automation & Practicality
Going deeper into Yelp’s slate of 20 new updates, we’ve extracted and summarized some of the best ones below to save Localogy Insider readers time. These mostly have an AI focus, but also accomplish practical goals such as saving users time in reading reviews, and streamlining promotions for SMBs.
Here are the highlights in no particular order.
- AI-powered Review Insights: New Review Insights use large language models to analyze and summarize reviewer sentiment on various aspects of a business, such as food quality, service, and ambiance. Insights are displayed above a business’s reviews as aggregated sentiment scores for each topic—positive, neutral, and critical—ranging from 1 to 100. Users can also explore related reviews for each topic. Review Insights are available on iOS for restaurant, food, and nightlife businesses.
- AI-powered personalized home feed: New updates to Yelp’s home feed on iOS help consumers better discover new and relevant businesses. The home feed now features new content types, such as user videos, reviews, trending searches, hot & new businesses, and more. In the coming weeks, Yelp will roll out an AI-powered update that better tailors a user’s home feed to their preferences.
- More Recognitions in more places: Consumers can now find a user’s Recognitions alongside their reviews on business pages, helping users identify when reviews are written by passionate contributors in business categories they’re interested in. Recognitions have also expanded to include 220 additional home services, beauty, and active life categories and are available on iOS and desktop with Android coming early next year.
- Tipping business attributes: To provide transparency around tipping, Yelp introduced eight new business attributes that inform users about an establishment’s tipping and payment policies. New attributes include whether the business has a “no tipping” policy, if tipping is optional, if gratuity is automatically applied to the bill, and more.
- Enhanced Yelp Assistant refines pro communication with project editing and broadcasting: Yelp Assistant, an AI chatbot that connects you with pros, now supports text and call requests from service pros on iOS, while masking the consumer’s phone number for their privacy. Users can also find Yelp Assistant through new conversational prompts on search results pages on iOS in addition to the Projects tab across all platforms. Additionally, new project editing and broadcasting makes it easy to edit and automatically relay revised project details to multiple services pros at once for the most accurate quotes.
- Request a Quote integration on Apple Maps: Yelp’s Request a Quote is now integrated with Apple Maps, allowing users to request quotes from local professionals across home, local, auto, professional, and events categories. Consumers can find a new “Quote” button on Apple Maps business pages, which redirects them into the Request a Quote flow for that business in the Yelp iOS app.
- AI-enhanced business owner inbox: In the coming weeks, service professionals will have an enhanced inbox that will help them manage leads more efficiently with redesigned job cards that feature AI-powered summaries, highlighting crucial job information for easy evaluation.
Marketing & Momentum
As noted, a fair amount of energy and effort in these updates focus on helping businesses manage their paid ads and leads. Going deeper into those features, they’re summarized as follows.
- Smart selection: The new AI-powered smart selection helps Yelp advertisers automatically test the best reviews and photos to showcase, optimizing their ads for the highest return on ad spend. This free feature is available to all Yelp advertisers.
- New competitive insights and enhanced support: A new competitor measurement tool on the Yelp for Business homepage allow business owners to compare their Yelp page performance with up to three competitors of their choice, helping better inform their growth strategies. Additionally, Yelp’s new ad budget options allow seasonal advertisers to temporarily reduce their ad spend with automatic restarts whenever it’s most convenient to them.
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“For business owners, we’re introducing new AI-powered features and updates that help them automatically optimize ads and make it easier to manage their leads, helping them grow their business,” Saldanha told us. “We’re looking forward to continuing this momentum into the new year, with even more updates for consumers, business owners, and our partners to come.”
