Zomato bans AI-generated food images after customer complaints
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced that the platform will remove AI-generated food and dish images after receiving numerous customer complaints. The AI images, originally introduced through a tool called PicNic AI to enhance visual presentation, reportedly misled customers and caused trust issues, increased refunds, and lower ratings.
What happened
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced on August 18, 2024, that the platform will remove AI-generated food and dish images from restaurant menus.
Zomato had previously introduced PicNic AI (Picture Nicely AI) to help restaurants upgrade their basic food images and enhance visual presentation.
The company received numerous customer complaints about AI-generated images being misleading, leading to breach of trust between customers and restaurants, increased refunds, and lower customer ratings.
Reported impact
Customers reported that AI-generated food images misled them, as the actual dishes did not match the representations.
Zomato documented increased complaints, refunds, and lower ratings resulting from the use of AI-generated food imagery.
Index analysis
Zomato's own assessment was that AI-generated food images are misleading and harmful to customer trust, despite being intended to add visual appeal.
Governance controls
Zomato CEO instructed the platform to actively remove AI-generated images from menus by the end of August 2024 and stop accepting new AI-generated dish images using automated detection.
The company's internal marketing team was instructed to stop using AI-generated images for marketing purposes.
Zomato offered restaurant partners free professional food photography services to replace AI-generated images.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.