By Jessica Yun
Publication Date: 2026-06-07 04:54:00
It’s rush hour. The guests are seated and more stream through the door. The plates are piled up on the pass. Two new UberEats orders just pinged through the delivery tablet. The phone started ringing, but there was no one to answer.
“Hello Jessica! Thanks for calling this restaurant. You’re talking to Buddy. What can I do for you today?”
Your guess is of course correct. On the other end is not a human, but an AI telephone concierge who may be answering the phone at a restaurant near you – or who is already doing so at over a thousand hotel operators across the country.
Every year, Australian restaurants receive 77 million calls, with around a third of them going unanswered. At peak times such as midday and 7 p.m., around every second call is missed. These are some of the…
