Bites and AI-Powered Restaurant Ordering: What Happens When Customers Stop Opening Delivery Apps?

For the last decade, online food ordering has followed a familiar journey:

Open delivery app → Search restaurants → Browse menus → Build cart → Checkout

AI could change that.

Bites, a restaurant-ordering company co-founded by former Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney, is building a different model where consumers can order food through AI assistants rather than relying entirely on a traditional marketplace interface.

The idea looks more like:

“Find me ramen nearby and order my usual.”

Then the AI handles discovery, decision-making, and checkout.

For restaurant owners, the important question is not whether Bites becomes the next DoorDash.

It's:

What happens when the customer no longer starts their restaurant search inside a delivery app?

What Is Bites?

Bites describes itself as an AI-native food-ordering network.

Its goal is to let customers discover and order restaurant food through AI assistants while keeping restaurant pricing closer to in-store pricing and giving restaurants greater ownership of customer relationships.

Bites has already demonstrated conversational ordering through platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok.

Instead of manually navigating a menu, a customer could make a request such as:

“Order lunch for five people. Two are vegetarian, keep it under $80, and choose something everyone can share.”

The AI can then help interpret the request and move toward an order.

Bites describes the process as:

Discovery → Decision → Checkout

inside one AI conversation.

The Interface Could Change

This may be the bigger story.

Today, restaurants compete for visibility inside:

• Google

• DoorDash

• Uber Eats

• Yelp

• Restaurant websites

• Social media

But AI introduces another potential interface.

Instead of:

Google → Restaurant website → Order

or:

DoorDash → Search → Restaurant → Order

the customer journey could become:

AI assistant → Restaurant recommendation → Order

That changes what restaurant visibility means.

A restaurant may need to optimize not only for what humans can see but also for what AI systems can understand.

Restaurants Need Structured Digital Information

Imagine someone tells an AI assistant:

“Find Japanese food near my office that can deliver lunch for 12 people tomorrow. Budget is $20 per person, and three people are vegetarian.”

To answer that properly, the AI needs accurate information about:

• Restaurant location

• Hours

• Menu

• Prices

• Modifiers

• Dietary options

• Delivery

• Pickup

• Catering

• Minimum orders

• Ordering availability

If that information is missing or inconsistent, the restaurant becomes harder for an AI system to recommend confidently.

That's why restaurant websites should not only look good.

They also need to clearly communicate:

Menu | Modifiers | Prices | Hours | Location | Ordering | Delivery | Catering

AI visibility starts with good restaurant data.

Your Menu Is Becoming Machine-Readable Infrastructure

Restaurant menus have traditionally been designed primarily for customers.

Now they increasingly serve another purpose:

Providing structured information to search engines, ordering platforms, POS systems, and AI agents.

That means restaurants should avoid common problems such as:

• Old menu PDFs

• Incorrect prices online

• Different hours across platforms

• Menu items only visible in images

• Missing modifier information

• Broken ordering links

• Outdated Google Business Profile information

If an AI assistant is making a recommendation or helping build an order, inconsistent information creates friction.

The restaurant with the clearest digital information may become easier for AI to understand.

Bites Is Also Challenging the Delivery Marketplace Model

The technology isn't the only interesting part.

The economics are different too.

Bites says it aims to avoid traditional marketplace commissions and menu markups. Its current consumer app describes restaurant menu prices as matching in-store pricing and uses more transparent delivery charges.

The Verge reports that Bites' model includes a low flat surcharge while allowing participating restaurants to retain access to customer data rather than giving the marketplace complete control of the relationship.

That's a significant difference.

Traditional third-party delivery can create:

Marketplace acquires customer → Restaurant fulfills order → Marketplace controls customer relationship

Bites is pushing toward:

AI discovers restaurant → Restaurant receives order → Restaurant retains customer relationship

That moves agentic ordering closer to first-party commerce.

Customer Data Could Become More Important

One of the biggest challenges with third-party delivery is customer ownership.

If someone discovers your restaurant through a marketplace and continues ordering there, you may have limited ability to:

• Identify them

• Build loyalty

• Send marketing

• Understand repeat behavior

• Encourage direct orders

Bites says its model is built around the principle that the diner belongs to the restaurant and that guest data and loyalty can remain connected to the restaurant and POS.

That creates an important restaurant growth principle:

The order matters.

But the customer relationship may be even more valuable.

AI Could Reduce the Importance of Marketplace Browsing

Traditional delivery apps make money partly because they control discovery.

Customers open the app.

They browse restaurants.

Restaurants compete for placement, advertising, promotions, and visibility.

AI agents could potentially reduce some of that browsing behavior.

A customer may simply say:

“Order me a high-protein lunch under $25.”

The AI may choose from available restaurant information without the customer scrolling through dozens of listings.

That could change the restaurant discovery battle.

Instead of optimizing only for:

Where do we rank inside the app?

restaurants may increasingly need to ask:

Can AI understand when our restaurant is the right answer?

This Makes Restaurant Data Quality More Important

Suppose your restaurant has:

Correct menu

but:

Wrong hours

or:

Correct hours

but:

Old pricing

or:

Great catering options

but:

No catering information on the website

An AI assistant can only work with the information it can access and understand.

That makes restaurant data management increasingly important.

Restaurant operators should regularly verify:

• Google Business Profile hours

• Website hours

• POS menu

• Online ordering menu

• Prices

• Modifiers

• Dietary labels

• Delivery radius

• Pickup availability

• Catering information

Think of it as maintaining the restaurant's digital operating data.

Independent Restaurants Should Strengthen Direct Ordering

AI ordering does not mean restaurants should abandon DoorDash or Uber Eats.

Marketplaces can still provide:

• Customer discovery

• Delivery logistics

• Convenience

• Incremental demand

But restaurants should also continue building channels they control.

That means:

Website → Direct Order → Customer Data → Loyalty → Email/SMS → Repeat Order

If AI agents eventually become another discovery layer, strong first-party ordering infrastructure becomes even more valuable.

The restaurant should be ready to receive customers regardless of where discovery happens.

Prepare for Conversational Ordering

Restaurants can begin preparing now without buying new AI technology.

Ask whether a customer—or an AI assistant—could easily determine:

What do you sell?

How much does it cost?

What can be modified?

When are you open?

Can I order online?

Do you deliver?

Do you cater?

What options work for dietary restrictions?

If those questions require five different websites or a phone call, your digital infrastructure needs improvement.

Measure Customer Ownership, Not Only Online Sales

Restaurants often compare channels using:

Sales

But that's incomplete.

Consider tracking:

• Order volume

• Average order value

• Commission

• Delivery fees

• Customer data captured

• Repeat order rate

• Loyalty enrollment

• Marketing permission

• Contribution profit

For example:

Third-Party Marketplace

$50 order

High acquisition reach

But potentially higher fees and less customer ownership.

Direct / AI-Enabled First-Party Order

$50 order

Potentially lower platform cost

Plus customer data and future marketing opportunities.

The long-term economics may be very different.

The Website Still Matters—but Its Role Is Changing

AI ordering does not make restaurant websites irrelevant.

It may make accurate websites even more important.

The website increasingly becomes a reliable source of restaurant information:

Who you are

What you sell

What it costs

Where you are

When you're open

How customers can order

The future restaurant website may serve two audiences:

Humans + Machines

It still needs to look appealing.

But it also needs to be easy for search engines and AI systems to understand.

Final Thoughts

Bites is still a relatively small player compared with platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats.

But the idea behind it is much bigger.

Restaurant ordering could gradually move from:

Search → Browse → Click → Checkout

toward:

Intent → AI recommendation → Transaction

That means restaurants should begin thinking beyond traditional app visibility.

The restaurant of the future needs clear, accurate, structured digital information.

Make sure AI can understand:

Menu → Price → Modifiers → Location → Hours → Ordering → Delivery → Catering

Then make sure customers who order can become part of your restaurant's own customer relationship.

The next restaurant technology battle may not be about which delivery app customers open.

It may be about whether they need to open one at all.

Prepare Your Restaurant for AI-Powered Discovery

Restaurant Growth Lab helps restaurant owners improve online ordering, restaurant technology, AI visibility, customer data, direct ordering, and digital marketing.

The goal isn't simply appearing in another platform.

The goal is making your restaurant easy to discover, understand, order from, and return to—wherever the customer journey starts.

References

The Verge — AI Could Upend Food Delivery
The Verge's October 2026 reporting examines Bites, AI-native restaurant ordering, its economics, restaurant customer-data ownership, and how AI agents could disrupt traditional delivery marketplaces.
Read The Verge coverage

Bites — Official Website
Bites describes its AI-native ordering model, in-store pricing philosophy, restaurant ownership of customer relationships, and approach to first-party ordering.
Explore Bites

Bites — Newsroom
Bites provides updates on its ChatGPT launch, POS integrations, agentic commerce partnerships, and expansion of AI-powered restaurant ordering.
Visit the Bites newsroom

Bites — Restaurant and POS Updates
Bites has announced integrations and demonstrations of conversational ordering across AI assistants, including group ordering and restaurant POS connections.