AI transforms stressful menus into simple dinner choices

Cooking dinner used to be the hard part.

- Hannah Twiggs, The Independent

Then came takeaways — the quiet admission that you couldn't be bothered to chop an onion or wash a pan — ordered from plastic menus at fluorescent-lit counters, handed over to harried parents and eaten out of foil containers. After that, takeaways came to you, summoned by an app and delivered straight to your door, without even having to speak to another human being. Now, even that final sliver of effort is being automated.

This week, Just Eat announced the launch of an AI voice assistant designed to help users decide what to order, framing it as a cure for “menu anxiety” and “choice overload”. The pitch is simple: talk to the app, describe your cravings, however vague and rambling, and let the algorithm think for you. Just Eat says this flexibility is the point: users can ask for anything from a “precise order for a Greggs sausage roll” to “a rambling stream of consciousness”, with the assistant designed to “deliver accurate, meaningful answers”.