Yelp rolls out AI-powered search updates and the ability to add videos to reviews

Yelp announced today that it’s introducing a series of new updates, including an enhanced AI-powered search experience and the ability to add videos to reviews.

Yelp says it can now better understand a user’s search intent and highlight relevant information from reviews in new snippets that appear under each business listing in search results. For example, when you search for “tennis courts” on Yelp, you will now see review highlights about tennis courts under each park or facility listed, such as “there are tennis courts that you need to book in advance.”

The company says it’s also using AI to provide better search suggestions based on a user’s search intent that are not bound by their location, which can help instances where you’re making plans for the future that aren’t near your home. Yelp now suggests businesses that you may be looking for across the U.S.

In addition, Yelp is introducing a new “Surprise Me” feature that will generate a unique highly rated recommendation near you. If you don’t like the first recommendation, you can click it again. The feature could be useful when you want to grab a quick bite near you but don’t know where to go.

If you’re still not sure where to eat, you can now use clickable category tags on business listings for restaurants, food and nightlife searches. These categories are designed to help you better refine your search.

As for videos in reviews, you can now post high-resolution video up to 12 seconds alongside your text review and photos on Yelp. The company says you can use videos to provide a unique look into your experience, whether it’s a new hike you discovered in your local park or the view from your recent hotel stay.

Yelp is also launching new interactive review topics that help you track what you’ve covered, and remind you of other topics you might want to address. The topics are food, service and ambience. The goal of these new interactive topics is to remind users of what to address when crafting a review. Once a topic is addressed it will automatically turn green with a checkmark at the top of your draft review. Yelp plans to expand relevant review topics to even more categories, such as services, beauty, health and shopping.

The platform currently has three review reactions: useful, funny and cool. Now, Yelp is rolling out four new review reactions: helpful, thanks, love this and oh no.

Beyond the new AI-powered features and review updates, Yelp announced that it’s rolling out “Yelp Guaranteed,” a new satisfaction guarantee program that will allow users to get up to $2,500 back in the event something goes wrong with their project.

“When you hire an eligible business through Yelp’s Request a Quote, you’ll automatically be enrolled in the program, allowing you to submit a claim if you run into challenges resolving an issue directly with the business — either because you’re not satisfied with the work performed, property was damaged related to the project or if the business was a no-show on a pre-paid job,” Yelp wrote in a blog post. “Yelp Guaranteed is currently available for eligible Request a Quote-enabled advertisers based on a variety of qualification factors.”

In addition, Yelp is adding a new navigation bar on restaurant, food and nightlife business pages to make it easier for users to quickly find the information they’re looking for by jumping directly to a business’s menu, amenities, reviews or other helpful information. Yelp has also redesigned the photo viewing experience on business pages by introducing AI-driven photo categories for food and nightlife businesses, as well as a new sort feature that enables people to quickly see recently added photos.

Last, Yelp is rolling out a new login experience that won’t require users to remember their password every time you want to log into your account. With this update, when you’re logging into Yelp, you will receive a unique email link that seamlessly and securely authenticates with just one click.