Zest’s new AI agent finds restaurants and books reservations over text

Zest, the restaurant discovery app that launched earlier this year, is already thinking about a future where mobile apps are no longer the primary interface. On Thursday, the startup introduced a new feature: a personal AI-powered “restaurant concierge” that lives in your text messages, similar to other popular AI agents like Instinct or Poke.

今年早些时候推出的餐厅发现应用 Zest 已经在构思一个移动应用不再是主要交互界面的未来。周四，这家初创公司推出了一项新功能：一个内置于短信中的个人人工智能“餐厅礼宾员”，类似于 Instinct 或 Poke 等其他流行的人工智能代理。

The launch reflects a broader shift in how startups are thinking about AI, as conversational AI agents take on tasks that had previously required users to launch stand-alone mobile apps. For Zest, that means bringing its restaurant recommendations into texts, then allowing users to immediately take the next step of booking a table.

此次发布反映了初创公司在人工智能思维方式上的广泛转变，对话式人工智能代理开始承担起以往需要用户启动独立移动应用才能完成的任务。对于 Zest 而言，这意味着将其餐厅推荐功能引入短信，并允许用户立即采取下一步行动——预订餐位。

“The agent is the product now,” explains Zest founder and CEO Mario Gomez-Hall. “You text it, and it answers from your own history and your friends’. It doesn’t need weeks of conversation to learn you because it starts from where you’ve actually been,” he said.

“代理现在就是产品，”Zest 创始人兼首席执行官马里奥·戈麦斯-霍尔（Mario Gomez-Hall）解释道。“你给它发短信，它会根据你和你朋友的历史记录来回答。它不需要几周的对话来了解你，因为它直接从你实际去过的地方开始，”他说。

Originally founded in November 2024, with $1.8 million in pre-seed backing from Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures, the app’s unique feature is that it links up with users’ credit cards to track where they’re actually eating out to get a sense of their tastes and interests.

该应用最初成立于 2024 年 11 月，获得了来自 776 的亚历克西斯·奥哈尼安（Alexis Ohanian）和 Kindred Ventures 的史蒂夫·张（Steve Jang）提供的 180 万美元种子前融资。其独特之处在于它与用户的信用卡关联，以追踪用户的实际就餐地点，从而了解他们的口味和兴趣。

With this data on hand, Zest can make tailored suggestions of what places you might like to try next, whether that’s in your own city or suggestions of places to try when you’re traveling. The credit card data used by Zest’s app is imported via the financial services company Plaid, which is used by banks and other fintech and budgeting apps.

有了这些数据，Zest 可以为你量身定制接下来想尝试的餐厅建议，无论是你所在的城市，还是你旅行时想去的地方。Zest 应用使用的信用卡数据是通过金融服务公司 Plaid 导入的，许多银行、金融科技和预算类应用都在使用该公司服务。

Zest says it focuses only on those transactions in the food and drink categories when making its personalized map and lists. The startup’s latest idea is to tackle the same problem — where should I go to eat? — from a new angle. It will now make its suggestions from inside a text message thread and can turn to AI to do things like check availability and make the reservation for you through connected services like OpenTable, Resy, and SevenRooms.

Zest 表示，在制作个性化地图和列表时，它只关注餐饮类别的交易。这家初创公司的最新构想是从一个新的角度解决同一个问题——我该去哪儿吃饭？现在，它将通过短信对话提供建议，并可以利用人工智能执行诸如查询空位等任务，并通过 OpenTable、Resy 和 SevenRooms 等关联服务为你完成预订。

To work, users will text the Zest concierge at (212) 470-6067. What’s even better is that Zest can be dropped into a group chat, where it can blend everyone’s tastes to find places the whole group will love. Here, it can also settle indecision with an in-thread voting feature and then can book a table for the group without leaving the conversation.

用户只需向 Zest 礼宾员发送短信至 (212) 470-6067 即可使用。更棒的是，Zest 可以被拉入群聊，它能融合所有人的口味，找到整个团队都会喜欢的餐厅。此外，它还可以通过对话内的投票功能解决大家意见不统一的问题，并在不离开对话的情况下为团队预订餐位。

Users can ask Zest for recommendations based on a number of factors, like cuisine, craving, occasion, dietary restrictions, or neighborhood, and can ask questions about the restaurants, like how busy the place may be, or whether it offers Wi-Fi, and more. Plus, you can ask Zest to send you the menu to help you make a decision.

用户可以根据菜系、口味偏好、场合、饮食限制或地理位置等多种因素向 Zest 寻求建议，还可以询问有关餐厅的问题，例如餐厅是否繁忙、是否提供 Wi-Fi 等。此外，你还可以让 Zest 发送菜单来帮助你做决定。

In TechCrunch’s tests, the AI worked fairly well, offering a list of suggestions for new places matched to our tastes that also fit particular conditions, like time of day, party size, location, and other factors. While finding an open table is something other apps have offered for years, there’s a convenience factor in being able to just text back and forth about the various options and have it tell you the available booking times.

在 TechCrunch 的测试中，该人工智能表现相当不错，提供了一系列符合我们口味的新餐厅建议，同时也满足了时间、人数、地点等特定条件。虽然寻找空位是其他应用多年来一直提供的功能，但能够通过短信来回讨论各种选择，并让它告诉你可预订的时间，这确实带来了一种便利。

The company began testing the concierge last month, but decided to hold the launch until it could add the booking capabilities; over time, the startup is considering moving Zest beyond restaurants to offer recommendations for businesses, shopping, and more. By shifting to texts, Zest hopes the company can scale beyond its initial thousands of users and generate revenue.

该公司上个月开始测试礼宾服务，但决定在增加预订功能后再正式发布。随着时间的推移，这家初创公司正考虑将 Zest 的业务范围从餐厅扩展到商业、购物等领域的推荐。通过转向短信模式，Zest 希望公司能够超越最初的数千名用户规模并实现盈利。

“Booking and ordering are the first revenue lines. Zest books your table through OpenTable or Resy today, with food ordering coming, and there are transactions there to participate in,” said Gomez-Hall. “The reason that gets interesting is that Zest learns your taste faster than a general assistant does, because it starts from where you’ve actually been instead of asking you questions. That’s worth something well beyond dinner,” he added.

“预订和点餐是首批收入来源。Zest 目前通过 OpenTable 或 Resy 为你预订餐位，未来还将推出点餐功能，其中涉及的交易我们可以参与分成，”戈麦斯-霍尔说。“这之所以有趣，是因为 Zest 比通用助手更快地了解你的口味，因为它从你实际去过的地方开始，而不是问你问题。这不仅仅是为了吃顿饭那么简单，”他补充道。