Think Food? Think Google

Google has been steadily adding features to its apps throughout the first half of this year focused on food, according to The Spoon.

Here is what Google has accomplished since January of this year:

•Duplex is a human sounding AI assistant that can make restaurant reservations.

•Partnered with Innit and Flex to enable new interfaces, cloud connectivity and smart kitchen software capabilities to appliances.

•It’s Wing Aviation subsidiary received FAA approval to make public drone deliveries. 

•Launched CallJoy, a phone based system to provide outgoing basic information and data analytics for small businesses like restaurants.

•Added menu recognition to Google Lens, letting you point your camera at a physical menu to highlight popular dishes and see pictures of them.

•Integrated food delivery from third parties like DoorDash and Postmates directly into Google Search, Maps and Assistant.

•Added popular dishes from restaurants directly into Google Maps.

They write that this doesn’t even take into consideration the work Google researchers are doing with robotics in the kitchen!  Google is getting a much bigger and more direct influence over how we will eat. The next big player in Food Tech is Google.