The AI waiter, a chat assistant on your menu

The AI waiter is a chat assistant on your guest pages. Guests tap Ask {name} on the menu, the online ordering page or the booking page and chat in English, Hindi or Hinglish. It recommends dishes, answers questions about the menu and your outlet, builds an order, shows the bill and how to pay, and books tables. Open it from Growth → AI waiter. Owners and managers can set it up.

What can the AI waiter do for guests?

• Answer questions: dishes, ingredients, veg/vegan/Jain, spice level, allergens, prices, opening hours, address, parking and anything you add under Your answers.
• Recommend dishes: it shows dish cards with an Add button that puts the dish in the same cart as the menu.
• Take orders: it shows an order card priced by AirQR (taxes, offers and charges exactly like the cart). The guest checks it and taps Place order. It is sent like a normal QR order. On your online ordering page it follows the guest's Pickup / Delivery choice: for Order ahead (pickup) the card asks "Who's collecting?" and the pickup time; for Delivery it asks "Where should we deliver?", takes the address, checks your delivery areas, fee and minimum order, and offers Pay on delivery or Pay now by UPI, all inside the chat. A UPI order shows the pay card right away and waits for the payment like any online UPI order.
• Show the bill and payment: for the guest's own orders, a pay card with your UPI link and QR. The guest taps I've paid, your staff verify it in Payments, and the chat says "Payment confirmed" by itself.
• Book tables: it finds free times and shows a booking card. The guest adds their name and phone and confirms.
• Call a waiter: guests at a table can ask for a waiter, the bill or water.

The waiter never orders, pays or books on its own: the guest always confirms on a card. Prices, sold-out dishes and opening hours are read live, so it never offers a dish you marked sold out. For allergy questions it uses your menu's allergen tags and always tells the guest to check with staff for severe allergies.

How do I switch the AI waiter on?

The AI waiter has one on/off: the AI waiter module. While it's on, guests see the Ask button and the page shows On for guests.

1. Make sure the AI waiter module is on in Settings → Modules (see Modules). You need a plan with the AI waiter: it's in Pro and the free trial, and an add-on on other plans. If you don't see it, see Plans and billing.
2. Open Growth → AI waiter and go to Setup.
3. Give it a Name (shown on the button, e.g. "Ask Saffron"), pick a Tone (Warm, Formal or Playful) and, if you like, a Greeting.
4. Choose Suggesting extras: Off, Gentle (at most one pairing per order) or Active.
5. Under What it can do, switch off anything you'd rather your staff handle: Take orders, Book tables, Show the bill and payment, Call a waiter. A switch is greyed out with a reason when the outlet can't do it (for example the Table QR ordering or Reservations & waitlist module is off).
6. Click Save changes. The Ask button shows on this outlet's menu, takeaway and booking pages.

The setup (what it knows, what it can do) is per outlet. The AI waiter module turns it on or off: for the whole business, or at one outlet with At each outlet in Settings → Modules. If you see "AirQR hasn't switched the AI waiter on yet", you can set it up now and guests will see it once AirQR turns it on.

How do I teach it my own answers?

Open the Knowledge tab.

• What the waiter knows shows how many dishes and answers it has and when it was last updated. It reads your menu, outlet details and offers automatically after every change. Click Rebuild now if something looks out of date; it shows progress and finishes in a minute or two.
• Your answers: click Add answer, write the Question guests ask ("Is there parking?", "Do you have Jain food?") and the Answer the way you'd tell a guest. With more than one outlet, choose All outlets or This outlet only. Use the switch to pause an answer, the arrows to reorder, the pencil to edit and the bin to delete.
• Questions it couldn't answer: guest questions from the last 30 days the waiter couldn't answer or that got a 👎. Click Add answer next to one to answer it.

How do I try it before guests do?

Open the Try it tab and chat with it the way a guest would. Order and booking cards look exactly as guests see them, but nothing is ordered or booked from the preview. Preview chats use AI credits like any other and are left out of your insights.

How many AI credits does it use?

Each guest message uses 1 AI credit, however many dishes or steps it takes. Credits are shared with Import menu, Write with AI and AI translations. To keep guest chat from using everything, set a Monthly credit cap for the outlet on Setup. When the credits or the cap run out, the button stays but the chat tells guests the waiter is taking a break and offers to browse the menu or call a waiter. Ordering from the menu always keeps working.

See your credits on Plan & billing under AI credits, with a usage page per day, feature, outlet and chat. Buy a credit pack or turn on pay as you go there; see AI credits, packs and pay as you go.

Where do I see what guests asked and ordered?

• Insights: conversations, orders and revenue through the chat, conversion, average order compared with other orders, bookings, waiter calls, 👍/👎, credits this month, what guests ask most and which dishes it recommended. Choose 7, 30 or 90 days.
• Conversations: every chat for 90 days. Search the messages or filter Flagged or 👎, and open one to read the whole conversation with its orders and bookings.

Chats are kept for 90 days and guests see a privacy note under the chat box.

How does "Remember me" work?

Guests can ask the waiter to remember them. They type their name and mobile number (or email) in the Remember me card and tick the consent box. It's separate from marketing: it never signs anyone up for messages.

• Same phone: the next time they open the chat on the phone they ordered and paid from, it says Welcome back and offers Your usual (their usual order, re-priced today, with anything sold out flagged), Something new (dishes they haven't tried, within their allergies and diet), Book again and Continue our last chat (within 7 days, at any of your outlets).
• New phone: typing a number isn't proof it's theirs. If their guest profile has an email, they confirm with a 6-digit code sent there. If it has only a phone number, they're greeted by name and their saved allergies and diet still quietly shape suggestions, but nothing from the past is shown (no orders, points, bookings or chats) until they use the phone they usually order from.
• What it remembers: allergies (in the guest's CRM allergies, so your staff see them too), diet (veg, vegan, Jain), spice level, usual party size, seating, likes and things to leave out. When a guest mentions one in the chat, the waiter asks "Shall I remember this for next time?" and saves it only if they tap Yes.
• Points: a recognised guest sees their points, and can use them on an order placed in the chat when you allow guests to redeem (Loyalty → settings).
• Not you? / Forget me: Not you? signs the waiter out on that phone. Forget me deletes what it learnt (preferences, chat memory and summaries) and signs out every phone. Orders, bills and points stay as your records.

Switch it on or off per outlet on Setup → Remember guests. There you also choose whether returning guests are recognised on the same phone, where one-time codes go (email today; WhatsApp and SMS are coming) and the birthday and anniversary wish with an optional offer (for example "A free dessert on us").

Where do I see what the AI waiter knows about a guest?

Open the guest in Guests. The AI waiter knows panel lists each saved preference with where and when it was said ("unconfirmed phone" means it was saved before the guest was recognised). You can remove any of them or set diet, spice and party size yourself. It also shows how many phones recognise the guest, with Sign out all devices (they then need a code, or a new paid order from that phone, to be recognised again), and links to their chats. On Insights, Remembered guests shows returning guests through the chat, revenue from them, the reorder rate and how often "Something new" led to an order.

How do I switch it off?

Turn off the AI waiter module in Settings → Modules. The button disappears from your guest pages. Your setup and answers are kept for when you turn it back on. If you have more than one outlet, you can turn it off at one outlet only (see Modules).

Troubleshooting

• No Ask button on the menu: check the AI waiter module is on for this outlet in Settings → Modules, your plan includes it and you have AI credits left. AirQR may also have it switched off for everyone for a short while.
• It gives an old price or misses a new dish: prices and stock are always live; a brand-new dish appears after the next update. Click Rebuild now on Knowledge.
• It can't take an order: ordering needs the Table QR ordering module on and QR ordering not paused (Pause QR ordering in Settings → Ordering). On the online page it needs the Online ordering (pickup) module on and online orders not paused.
• It can't book a table: check the Reservations & waitlist module is on and bookings aren't paused (Pause bookings on the Reservations page). Dine-in orders need the guest to scan a table QR or pick their table.
• A returning guest isn't welcomed back: recognition needs the guest to have tapped Remember me once, and an order from that phone that was paid or settled. If you signed out their devices, or they said Not you?, they're recognised again after their next paid order from that phone, or straight away with a code (when their profile has an email).
• A guest paid but the chat still says checking: staff verify UPI payments in Payments. Once verified, the chat updates by itself.

Related: QR ordering for guests, Reservations, Payment center.