The food delivery giant DoorDash has officially launched a new AI social app called Zesty. The app aims to revolutionize how users discover local restaurants by helping them skip long reviews and searches to quickly find their ideal dining spots, through personalized AI chat and social sharing features.
AI-Powered New Paradigm for Food Discovery
The concept of the Zesty app is to go beyond traditional food delivery and search models, expanding DoorDash's business into social and food discovery areas.
Core Features: Users can simply log in with their DoorDash account and ask the AI chatbot within the app for personalized restaurant recommendations.
Personalized Prompts: Users can enter highly specific prompts, such as "a quiet dinner for introverts in Williamsburg" or "a place for group brunches," and the AI will provide precise recommendations based on these needs.
Information Aggregation: According to DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang, Zesty aggregates information from multiple platforms, including DoorDash, Google Maps, and TikTok, aiming to "curate the best suggestions from the web."
Learning Mechanism: The app has a learning ability and continuously understands user preferences based on their interactions.
In addition to AI recommendations, Zesty also integrates social network features, encouraging users to share and interact:Share and Save: Users can save recommended places they are interested in and share them with friends.Social Interaction: Users can view, share photos and reviews of restaurants they have visited, discover others' content, and follow others, just like on other social networks.
Currently, the Zesty app is in a pilot phase, available only in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York region.
A DoorDash spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is testing Zesty, aiming to help users more easily discover high-quality nearby restaurants, cafes, and bars through personalized search and social sharing, and looking forward to feedback from early testers.
The Latest Attempt to Expand Business Reach
The launch of Zesty marks DoorDash's latest effort to expand its business beyond its core delivery services. Earlier this year, the company introduced a feature allowing customers to book dine-in and receive in-store rewards.
Although users can choose to use Google or existing AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to find new restaurants, Zesty offers a vertical social network focused on food discovery
