Yelp’s new AI-powered review filters will show what you want to know

Yelp is introducing some new AI features that aim to help users discover new establishments and narrow down customer reviews. The AI-powered “Review Insights,” announced today as part of Yelp’s end-of-year product release, quickly summarize how customers feel about certain aspects of a business, such as food quality, service, ambiance, and wait times.

Review insights are aggregated sentiment scores that provide a quick overview of topics using facial icons  — positive, neutral, and critical — displayed above a business’s reviews. Yelp users can click specific topics to read related reviews that focus on those aspects of the business, such as what customers are saying about the food or service.

Yelp says the feature is available on iOS for restaurant, food, and nightlife businesses, and will be expanded to services categories “next year.” Review insights builds on the AI-powered review summaries feature that Yelp introduced in January.

“When searching for a local restaurant, you might have a specific aspect in mind that matters most to you — be it the vibe of the space, how long it takes to get a table, or the quality of the food,” said Yelp’s Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha in the announcement blog. “Even when a review doesn’t explicitly mention one of the topics, the LLM understands the context in the review to identify and surface the relevant topic and sentiment.”

The home feed search bar on iOS now features a trending drop-down that highlights the most popular terms other local users are looking for, which will be coming to Android “early next year.” The iOS app home page has also been expanded to include new reviews, photos, and full-screen video spotlights uploaded by other users that surface recent experiences. Yelp says it’s rolling out an AI-powered update that “better tailors the home feed to your preferences” in the coming weeks.