Restaurants test chatbots for menu and wine advice, evidence is thin

In short: More restaurants are trying chatbots to answer menu and wine pairing questions quickly, but there is little independent proof they give better wine advice than human experts.

What's going on

Restaurants and wine sellers are adding chatbots, which are automated chat helpers you can text or talk to, to handle common questions. They can take reservations, explain menu items, and suggest a wine to go with your meal. The goal is speed, like having an always-available host who answers instantly.

This can be especially helpful for people who feel anxious ordering in a busy dining room. Instead of waving for a server during a rush, a diner can ask a bot for a pairing suggestion or a quick explanation of a dish. Some tools are designed to set up fast and use a restaurant’s own menu and other materials to answer questions.

Bots can also make specific pairing suggestions, like recommending Chardonnay with a creamy salmon dish, or Malbec with steak. Some retail-focused bots claim they can tailor picks to what is actually in stock, and can even help drive sales by guiding customers through choices (like a short quiz with buttons for meal type and budget). There are also newer AI systems trained on “sensory data,” meaning information tied to smell and taste, to help describe aromas.

What to watch

Most of the public evidence here is marketing from the companies selling the tools, not independent testing. There are few direct studies comparing chatbot wine advice with a sommelier’s advice, and no clear head-to-head accuracy scores in these sources. For now, chatbots look best at fast, basic help, while complex pairings may still depend on how well the bot is trained and how much context it gets.

Source: NYTimes