Yelp Launches the New Yelp Assistant, Transforming Local Discovery from Search to Answers and Actions

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 21, 2026--

Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects people with great local businesses, announced its Spring Product Release, introducing more than 35 new features and updates that transform how consumers discover, connect and get things done with local businesses. The release unveils the new Yelp Assistant, an AI-powered chatbot that delivers instant answers, reliable recommendations and seamless booking—from restaurant reservations to beauty appointments—all in one conversation. New integrations with Vagaro, Zocdoc and Calendly expand scheduling capabilities across more categories on Yelp, while enhancements to AI-powered Menu Vision make deciding what to order more visual and engaging. The release also introduces new tools for advertisers, including an AI-powered support chatbot and enhanced advertising tools.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260421195188/en/

“The new Yelp Assistant is our most significant AI product evolution yet as we reconceive Yelp around instant answers and seamless actions,” said Craig Saldanha, chief product officer at Yelp. “The experiences and opinions from real people that power every recommendation are what sets Yelp Assistant apart, delivering trustworthy results that help consumers make confident decisions, faster. And for the first time, consumers can seamlessly move from discovery to action in a single conversation with new and enhanced integrations—from booking a table, to ordering delivery or scheduling an appointment. As we transform Yelp with AI, this is only the beginning of a more conversational, personalized and action-oriented Yelp experience.”

Discover and get things done across every category with AI-powered Yelp Assistant

First introduced to help consumers hire services professionals and answer questions about individual businesses, Yelp Assistant now works across every category on Yelp and is accessible at the center of the app through a new “Assistant” tab on iOS and Android. Powered by hundreds of millions of reviews, photos and detailed business information from the Yelp community, Yelp Assistant can handle complex and highly specific requests and surfaces real user-generated content from first-hand experiences in answers to validate each recommendation.

New and existing integrations make it easy to go from discovery to doing, directly from the app:

More ways to book, order and schedule on Yelp

The new integrations available through Yelp Assistant are now also accessible throughout the Yelp app, making it easier than ever for consumers to take action across the platform. New partnerships with Vagaro, Zocdoc and Calendly bring booking, ordering and scheduling capabilities to more categories.

“Through our expanded integration with Yelp, we’re making it easier than ever for consumers to move from discovery to booking in just a few taps,” said Fred Helou, CEO of Vagaro. “By connecting Yelp’s powerful search and recommendation platform with Vagaro’s robust scheduling capabilities, beauty, wellness and fitness businesses can capture high-intent customers at the exact moment they’re ready to book. We’re excited to partner with Yelp to deliver a more seamless, end-to-end experience that benefits both businesses and their clients.”

“Booking a doctor’s appointment should be just as easy as booking dinner,” said Oliver Kharraz, MD, founder and CEO of Zocdoc. “Integrating Zocdoc’s healthcare access infrastructure into Yelp is another step toward making access to in-network care simple and immediate, wherever patients begin their search.”

"Scheduling should be the easiest part of winning a new customer,” said Chirag Chheda, CTO of Calendly. “Our integration with Yelp makes that a reality for service professionals by bringing Calendly's real-time availability directly into the conversation when a customer is ready to book. This partnership represents a deeper expansion into home services, connecting our scheduling platform with one of the largest marketplaces where high intent consumers discover and connect with businesses every day. We're excited to help service pros on Yelp turn more leads into appointments with less effort."

Smarter menus, personalized feeds and more

Additional features and updates from Yelp’s 2026 Spring Product Release:

Additional information and assets

For more details on the news, learn more in Yelp’s 2026 Spring Product Release blog post, and a Q&A with Yelp's Vice President of Product Nicole Lund on what's next for local businesses on Yelp. Assets and images are available here. For further information about Yelp, visit the company’s Fast Facts page.

About Yelp Inc.

Yelp Inc. (yelp.com) is a community-driven platform that connects people with great local businesses. Millions of people rely on Yelp for useful and trusted local business information, reviews, and photos to help inform their spending decisions. As a one-stop local platform, Yelp helps consumers easily discover, connect, and transact with businesses across a broad range of categories by making it easy to request a quote for a service, book a table at a restaurant, and more. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in 2004.

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to, among other things, Yelp’s future product plans, including the ability of its investments and initiatives to drive profitable long-term growth and shareholder value, which are based on its current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties.

Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences also include, but are not limited to, those factors that could affect Yelp’s business, operating results, and stock price included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Yelp’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K or Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q at yelp-ir.com or the SEC’s website at sec.gov.

Yelp's 2026 Spring Product Release introduces more than 35 new features and updates, including the new Yelp Assistant, expanded booking integrations, and an enhanced Menu Vision.

Using AI to surface insights from authentic community content, Yelp Assistant helps you find the perfect spot, book a reservation, and get detailed answers in one seamless conversation.

LONDON (AP) — The top official behind the decision to approve Peter Mandelson 's appointment as British ambassador to Washington said Tuesday that he felt political pressure from Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office to rush through the appointment, despite security concerns.

Claims by former Foreign Office head Olly Robbins that Starmer's office had a “dismissive attitude” to security vetting increase the heat on Britain's leader, who is facing calls to resign over the appointment of the friend of Jeffrey Epstein to one of the U.K.'s most important diplomatic posts.

The prime minister fired Robbins last week after the revelation that Mandelson was approved for the job in January 2025 against the recommendation of the government's security vetting agency.

Robbins said the concerns about Mandelson did not relate to his relationship with Epstein. He declined to say when questioned by lawmakers what led the government's vetting agency to flag Mandelson as a potential security risk.

Robbins said the vetting agency considered Mandelson a “borderline case” and was “leaning toward recommending against” giving him security clearance. Robbins decided to clear him anyway.

Starmer has called it “staggering” that Foreign Office officials failed to tell him about the security concerns, which he says he only found out about last week.

But Robbins said the rules bar details of the sensitive vetting process from being shared except in “exceptional circumstances.”

Robbins told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that there was an “atmosphere of pressure” coming from Starmer’s office to approve the appointment so Mandelson could be in post at the start of President Donald Trump 's second term.

He said there was “a very, very strong expectation” that Mandelson “needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible” and “a generally dismissive attitude” to the security vetting from Starmer's office.

Robbins said he was “very conscious” that refusing Mandelson security clearance would have caused “a real problem for the government and a problem for the country” in relations with the Trump administration.

Robbins insisted his department “did not bow to that pressure.” He said his decision to grant Mandelson clearance was based on security advice that the risks could be managed.

Robbins declined to identify any individuals as being behind the pressure. Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, a protégé of Mandelson, resigned in February, saying he took responsibility for the decision to appoint Mandelson.

Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Robbins’ testimony “is devastating to Keir Starmer.”

She said “it is now absolutely clear that ‘full due process’ was not followed. Keir Starmer has misled the House” of Commons — generally considered a resigning offense.

Starmer has denied misleading lawmakers. He acknowledged on Monday that he made the wrong judgment when he picked Mandelson for the job, but said he would have withdrawn the appointment if he’d known about the failed security vetting.

Starmer fired Mandelson in September, nine months into the job, when new details emerged about his friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.

He has ordered a review into any security concerns arising from Mandelson’s access to sensitive information while ambassador.

Critics say the Mandelson appointment is more evidence of bad judgment by a prime minister who has made repeated missteps since he led Labour to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

He picked Mandelson as ambassador despite being warned by his staff that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein exposed the government to “reputational risk.”

Mandelson’s business links to Russia and China also set off alarm bells. And, aside from his association with Epstein, Mandelson had to resign twice from senior posts in previous Labour governments because of scandals over money or ethics.

But his expertise as a former European Union trade chief and contacts among global elites were considered assets in dealing with the Trump administration.

The scandal has caused gloom among lawmakers in Starmer’s center-left Labour Party, already anxious about its dire poll ratings. Starmer already defused one potential crisis in February, when some Labour lawmakers urged him to resign over the Mandelson appointment.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he had raised concerns about the choice of ambassador, but didn’t think Starmer should resign over the debacle.

“If every time a prime minister made a mistake they resigned, we would shuttle through prime ministers like nobody’s business,” he told the BBC.

Mandelson is under police investigation for suspected misconduct in public office after a trove of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January included emails suggesting Mandelson had passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, after the global financial crisis.

British police launched a criminal probe and arrested Mandelson in February. Mandelson has previously denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged. He does not face allegations of sexual misconduct.

FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)

FILE - Olly Robbins walks on Whitehall in Westminster, London, Jan. 17, 2019. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)

Peter Mandelson is seen with his dog outside his home in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, April 20, 2026 to face a showdown in Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)