Notes · AI, data and rules
An AI agent does not read your menu at leisure. It looks for a free table at nine, and if it cannot see one, you do not exist.
What Google and TheFork have announced about AI bookings, what has not yet reached Spain or Switzerland, the blind spot of attributes, and why the website is still where the returning guest is won.
Picture this: an executive from New York spends a weekend in Zermatt with three friends. On Friday afternoon she asks ChatGPT for a table for four on Saturday at nine, with a view of the Matterhorn and vegan options. The assistant shows half a dozen restaurants with photos, ratings and free slots, and she books one in two taps. Your restaurant, which has the best view in the village and only takes bookings by phone, was not on the list. Nobody turned you down. You simply were not there.
For years the question was whether your restaurant showed up on Google. Now there is another one: whether it shows up when the one searching is not a person, but an assistant booking on that person’s behalf.
What has been announced.
On 17 November 2025, Google began offering restaurant bookings from AI Mode in its US search, with no need to opt into Labs. According to Google, the person describes what they want and AI Mode searches across multiple reservation platforms and websites for real-time availability, shows a curated list and links to the partner that completes the booking, such as OpenTable, Resy or Tock. In the same announcement, Google said it is working with Booking.com, Expedia, Marriott, IHG and others so that flight and hotel bookings can also be completed inside AI Mode in the future.
On 10 April 2026, the feature reached the UK with eight partners, including TheFork, SevenRooms, ResDiary and OpenTable. Google backed it with its own Google Trends figure: searches for “when to book a table” had risen 140% so far that year. And since December 2025, according to Forbes Spain, TheFork has had an app inside ChatGPT, launched first in Spain and also available in Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany and other countries, which shows restaurants with photos, ratings, offers and availability, and lets people book without leaving the conversation.
What I do not know.
I have not found any Google announcement switching on AI Mode restaurant bookings in Spain or Switzerland, and I do not know when they will arrive. I do not know how Google decides which restaurants make its shortlist, or whether a restaurant that only publishes availability on its own website can appear just like one connected to a platform. Nor do I know whether hotel booking inside AI Mode has reached Europe yet. And I do not know the terms of your contract with any reservation platform: each one charges and shares data in its own way.
The blind spot: the agent filters by attributes, not adjectives.
The person asks for “a view, vegan options, a table for four, Saturday at nine”. A lovely paragraph about the evening light does not answer that. Data does: correct opening hours, availability that can be queried, a menu that says what is vegan, the terrace marked as a terrace on your Google profile and on the platform. That last point is my own inference about how these assistants work, not a rule Google has published. But most restaurants I know keep that data scattered across a website, an outdated profile and a notebook on the host stand.
An agent cannot book what it cannot see.
Where I stand.
I am not asking you to hand your dining room to a platform or to book every table through third parties. I am asking for two things. First, that part of your availability exists where the machines ask, on terms you control and review. Second, that your website does what no platform does: give the person who came once through an assistant a clear reason to come back by booking directly, in their own language. The machine brings you the first table. The second one you win yourself.
What I would check.
- The direct test. What ChatGPT with TheFork, or whichever assistant your guests use, returns today when asked for a table like yours.
- Your attributes. Opening hours, terrace, accessibility, dietary options and group size, identical on your website, your Google profile and your platform.
- Your availability. Whether it can be checked anywhere without a phone call.
- The contract. What each platform charges, which guest data it shares with you and what share of the room you hold back.
- The return. What someone who has already dined with you finds on your website when they want to come back.
Where to start.
- This week
Run the test
Ask two AI assistants for a table like the ones you sell and note who appears.
- This month
Put the data in order
The same hours, the same menu and the same attributes everywhere, in every language.
- This quarter
Choose the channel
Which part of your availability is published, where and on what terms, with the contract figures in front of you.
- Every month
Measure the source
How many bookings arrive through each channel and how many guests come back booking directly.
Try it tonight. Ask an AI assistant to find you a table for four at nine in your city, somewhere like yours. Notice which data it uses to decide: opening hours, price, whether there is a terrace, whether there is a gluten-free menu.
Do you appear? If not, do you know why? And if you do, will the guest who arrives that way be yours next time, or the assistant’s?
If you would like me to review what an AI assistant sees today when it looks for a restaurant or hotel like yours, and how to turn that first booking into a direct guest, start with the Strategic Diagnostic. Which platforms suit you is for you to decide with your own numbers, not a designer.