Indian Food Delivery Platform Zomato Bans AI-Generated Images

Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery platform Zomato has announced plans to remove AI-generated food and dish images from the platform. The decision to remove the AI-generated pictures was driven by numerous customer complaints about the “misleading images.”

Apparently, the AI images of dishes on menus were intended to enhance visual appeal. However, after receiving complaints regarding the same, CEO Deepinder Goyal expressed on the social media platform that it “leads to breach of trust between customers and restaurants” but also “increased refunds and lower customer ratings."

He added, “At Zomato, we use various forms of AI to make our workflows efficient. However, one place where we strongly discourage the use of AI is images for dishes in restaurant menus.”

“We urge our restaurant partners to avoid using AI for dish images in restaurant menus from now onwards,” the CEO said, adding that the platform “will actively start removing such images from menus by the end of this month.”

Notably, Goyal also stated that Zomato will stop accepting AI-generated dish images as much as the company can detect through automation. He asked both restaurant owners and in-house marketing teams to stop leveraging AI-generated images for marketing purposes.

In tandem, Goyal recommended restaurant partners invest in real food photography from Zomato for free. “Restaurant owners, if you haven’t yet invested in real food shots for your menu, please reach out to our catalog support team to schedule a photoshoot.”

“This is offered to you as a pass-through cost; Zomato doesn’t make any money as part of this process,” he said.