DoorDash introduced new artificial intelligence features on Monday aimed at reducing the time it takes for restaurants to join its platform and enhancing the visual appeal of food listings. The San Francisco-based delivery company said the tools use machine learning to automate parts of the merchant onboarding process and generate higher-quality images of dishes without requiring manual editing.
The AI system can now process a restaurant’s existing website or menu to create a basic storefront page within minutes. Instead of uploading dozens of product photos, merchants provide a link to their site and the AI extracts relevant images, resizes them to DoorDash’s specifications, and applies automatic color correction to make food look fresher. The company said this reduces photo upload time from hours to under ten minutes for most businesses.
A second feature lets restaurant owners edit dish photos directly in the DoorDash merchant portal. The AI identifies the main dish in an image and suggests cropping, brightness, and contrast adjustments to highlight textures like crispy crusts or glossy sauces. DoorDash said the tool has been trained on thousands of professional food photography examples to ensure edits align with consumer expectations.
The company also added a text-generation function that converts a restaurant’s menu descriptions into shorter, platform-optimized copy for listings. DoorDash said this helps smaller eateries that lack dedicated marketing teams compete with larger chains that have polished descriptions. The AI analyzes menu items and suggests keywords that improve search visibility on the app.
These tools are part of DoorDash’s broader effort to cut operational friction for merchants after criticism that its onboarding process was slow and image requirements too strict. Last year, the company reported that restaurants with complete, high-quality listings saw 40% higher order volumes than those with incomplete profiles. DoorDash now hosts more than 700,000 merchants globally, making efficiency in onboarding critical to scaling without proportional support costs.
DoorDash did not disclose how many merchants have used the new AI features since their launch on Monday. The company plans to expand the tools to its Drive and Self-Delivery programs later this year.
Source: techcrunch.com