AI assisted meal selection

Leveraging AI to make deciding what to eat a snap.

We explored how AI could improve the experience for Shorter Order, Viget’s internal app for group meal orders like our weekly Free Lunch Friday.

The PersonAIzed Menu

problem

Why do I have to slog through a full menu when most of it is irrelevant to me?

I’m a vegetarian

I never order salads

Mushrooms? DO NOT LIKE

Who orders crawfish for work lunch?!?

solution

A PersonAlIzed Menu, so you’ll never have to scroll through another “Soups” section

A Chrome extension that turns any restaurant website’s menu (including PDFs) into an AI-(re)generated, personalized menu. The PersonAIzed Menu shows only items that are relevant to you based on your order history, stated preferences, and feedback.

A prototype of the app working inside of a browser window. The plugin is initiated and then displays a tabbed list of various menu items related to the restaurant. The user selects the "Deep Cuts" category tab and then selects the "Chickpea Bowl" menu item from within it. The user is then prompted that the order has been submitted with an animated thumbs-up illustration before fading back out and looping over again.

Marquee Ticker Block that repeats "the AI ingredients"

Shorter is sweeter

Restaurant menus are one-size-fits-all: size looong. But for many of us, only a handful of items are relevant.

The PersonAIzed Menu turns the more-is-better menu assumption on its head: The AI pulls out the handful of items it predicts you’ll like best, so you can ignore the rest.

Start with fewer, more relevant items

A screenshot of the app UI in which there are tabs labeled "The Usual", "Deep Cuts", and "Adventures". The screen is currently on "The Usual" tab displaying some menu recommendations they’ve made in the past which includes an Impossible Burger, a Black Bean Burger, and Cheese Pizza.

User can expand the relevant items shown

The Familiarity Tuner

The Familiarity Tuner lets you refresh the PersonAIzed Menu based on how routine — or adventurous — you’re feeling that day.

“The Usual” puts more weight on your typical orders

A screenshot of the app UI in which there are tabs labeled 'The Usual', 'Deep Cuts', and 'Adventrues'. The screen is currently on 'The Usual' tab displaying some menu recommendations they’ve made in the past which includes an Impossible Burger, and a Black Bean Burger.

“Deep Cuts” puts more weight on your occasional orders

A screenshot of the app UI in which there are tabs labeled 'The Usual', 'Deep Cuts', and 'Adventrues'. The screen is currently on the 'Deep Cuts' tab displaying the menu recommendations of a Chickpea Bowl, and Vegetable Lasagna.

“Adventures” suggests entirely new items

A screenshot of the app UI in which there are tabs labeled 'The Usual', 'Deep Cuts', and 'Adventrues'. The screen is currently on the 'Adventures' tab displaying the menu recommendations of an Egg Salad Sandwich, and Banana Pudding.

Loosely inspired by Bing Chat’s tone tuner

A screenshot of the Bing tone tuner which includes a prompt to select a conversation style from the options of 'More Creative', 'More Balanced', and 'More Precise'.

The Order Assistant

A screenshot of the assistant in action. It shows an email style message to 'You' from 'The Order Assistant' with a message saying 'Hey pal! We’re ordering from Pearl Street Cafe for Free Lunch Friday this week. We chose the Impossible Burger for you. If you want something else, let me know by 12:00 PM on Wednesday July 19.

problem

Logistics are a hassle

It’s a busy day and I’ve got work to do — I don’t even have time to look at a PersonAIzed menu.

Just pick for me!

solution

Automated meal selection

The Order Assistant makes a selection for you from your PersonAIzed Menu. It notifies you of the automated selection, and gives a time window for changing the selection.

User Control

If you don’t want the PersonAIzed Menu, you can turn off the browser extension

A low-fidelity browser menu containing an illustration of the user controls.

The Order Assistant is off by default. You need to turn it on if you want to use it.

Some people may prefer the full menu experience, or may not want to cede the decision to AI. Or early versions of the AI features may not work as well as we hoped.

Whatever the reason, we want to make sure AI features are an option for interested users, not a requirement for all users.

Preference Inputs

While the PersonAIzed Menu would lean on analysis of the user’s order history, we want to make sure users have multiple ways to state explicit food preferences or requirements.

We would explore both structured and natural-language inputs. Food preferences and requirements can be so nuanced that it may be more effective to leverage Large Language Models’ natural language capabilities, rather than try to pre-define and structure those preferences.

  • I’m going to try eating meat again after 10 years as a vegetarian, but I’m only starting with chicken.
  • I’m allergic to peanuts and walnuts, but other nuts are ok.
  • I’m vegetarian but can’t or won’t eat tomatoes, mushrooms, and eggplant.
  • I’m giving up cheese for a month for Lent.

Per-Item Feedback

You can also give feedback about individual items in your PersonAIzed menu. This feedback will be incorporated into future generated menus.