Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal promises to remove AI-Generated food image from menus, says ’leads to breach of trust...’

Deepinder Goyal, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zomato Ltd., strongly discouraged the use of artificial intelligence (AI) generated images for dishes listed on the restaurant's menu, citing reasons for them being misleading, according to a post on the social media platform X on Sunday, August 18.

“One place where we strongly discourage the use of AI is images for dishes in restaurant menus. AI-generated food/dish images are misleading, and we have received numerous customer complaints on this issue,” said Deepinder Goyal, stating that the company uses AI to increase workflow efficiency, as per the post on platform X.

Zomato Ltd's shares closed 1.89 per cent higher at ₹264.50 after Friday's trading session, compared to ₹259.60 in the previous market close.

Goyal highlighted that Zomato customers have complained about this breach of trust, which has caused them to file more complaints, refund requests, and low ratings.

“Customers say that this leads to breach of trust, and it leads to higher complaints & refunds, and also, lower ratings,” said Goyal in the post.

The Zomato chief further extended his address to the partner restaurants. Goyal requested they avoid using artificial intelligence-generated images for dishes listed on their menu with immediate effect. Zomato “will actively start removing such images from menus by the end of this month,” said the executive, as the brand can detect AI images through automation.

The Zomato chief also extended a hand to the restaurants, asking them to reach out to the support team to schedule a photoshoot, which will be at a pass-through cost basis, according to a post on platform X.

Goyal also flagged the company's marketing team about the “ban”, which applies to them in the form of an instruction which will prohibit them from further using any form of AI-generated image content from this day forth.

Most netizens appreciated Zomato Chief's post on platform X, and some even flagged certain issues with multiple restaurants using the same images for their listed menu items. Zomato replied to the post with the assurance that “this will be worked upon,” as per a tweet reply from the food-delivering company.