SAN FRANCISCO, September 11 — OpenTable rolled out more than 20 new and updated product features for restaurants on Friday, a release the company calls its biggest product update for restaurants to date, built around artificial intelligence and automation tools that span demand generation, reporting, table management and software integrations. Many of the additions are aimed at cutting manual work for staff, helping venues fill more seats, and connecting booking data with other systems.
Sagar Mehta, OpenTable’s Chief Technology Officer, said the company concentrated on practical uses for AI as restaurant operators face pressure to work more efficiently. “Restaurants are under pressure to do more with less, and their technology needs to solve real problems quickly,” Mehta said.
“We’ve developed these tools by listening directly to our restaurant partners and building what they’ve asked for.”
Finding restaurants through chatbots
A central piece of the update is restaurant discovery through large language model platforms and OpenTable’s own AI chat service. OpenTable now has partnerships and integrations with AI services and search platforms including ChatGPT and Perplexity, with the goal of making restaurants more visible when diners search through conversational tools rather than conventional search engines. According to OpenTable’s internal data, those integrations drove 17 times more seated diners year on year.
Diners arriving through those channels also spent an average of 20% more than those from other channels, the company said. OpenTable also said its AI Concierge service now has more than 500,000 monthly active users globally.
The tool lets diners search for restaurants using natural language prompts and book through a conversational interface. Think of it like describing the dinner you want to a host who already knows every table in town, rather than scrolling through filters.
Reporting and table tools
OpenTable is testing a natural language reporting feature called Conversational Reporting. Restaurant operators will be able to ask questions about business performance in plain language and get immediate responses, instead of relying on dashboards, exports or manual analysis. The company said group operators could, for example, ask which locations had recorded the largest increase in covers.
The feature remains in testing, but reflects a broader push by restaurant software providers to make business intelligence tools easier for non-technical staff to use. Another addition is Table Automations, which adjusts table minimums based on live demand.
OpenTable said the feature has processed more than 2 million automations since its test phase, and that early users saved an average of 4.5 hours a month. The update also includes tools intended to identify gaps in restaurant availability. Turn Times and Availability Insights are designed to show operators where they are losing bookable hours and inventory.
In testing, operators regained an average of 39 minutes of reservable time per shift, according to OpenTable.
Knowing the guest, and the restaurant
OpenTable has expanded its Guest Relationship Management tools as well. The updated system offers 10 times more guest detail than a standard guestbook, including cross-location visit history for group operators. That means staff at one venue in a restaurant group can view a guest’s profile and prior visits at another location, helping venues recognise and respond to repeat customers even if they are visiting a site for the first time.
OpenTable is also introducing AI-generated restaurant profiles based on information drawn from venue websites and operator-supplied details. The feature is intended to save time for operators while giving diners fuller information.
“We’re applying AI and automation where it can make the biggest difference — driving demand, unlocking revenue and helping teams deliver more personalised hospitality without adding more complexity,” Mehta said. “When the right systems work together, restaurants get something invaluable in return: more time to focus on their guests.” The launch underscores a broader trend of AI adoption in the hospitality sector, where operators are seeking to streamline operations and personalise service amid persistent labor and cost pressures.
What to watch next: whether Conversational Reporting moves out of testing, and how quickly diners shift their restaurant searches into chatbot conversations.
