Food delivery and restaurant discovery platform Zomato announced that it will start removing images of dishes generated using artificial intelligence (AI) from its platform. This decision followed a significant number of customer complaints about the misleading nature of these images.

In a statement shared on social media platform X.com, CEO of Zomato, Deepinder Goyaladdressed the concerns raised by customers. “At Zomato, we use various forms of AI to make our workflows more efficient.

“However, we strongly advise against the use of AI, namely in images of dishes in restaurant menus. AI-generated images of food/dishes are misleading and we have received numerous customer complaints on this issue. Customers say this leads to breaches of trust and leads to more complaints and refunds as well as poorer reviews,” Goyal added.

Zomato will start removing AI-generated images from its platform from now until the end of this month. The company will also take steps to prevent such images from being uploaded, using automation to detect and manage them as much as possible.

---

---

Goyal encouraged restaurant owners who have not yet invested in professional food photography to contact Zomato’s catalogue support team. “Restaurant owners – if you have not yet invested in real food photos for your menu, please contact our catalogue support team to schedule a photography session at (email protected). This will be offered to you as a pass-through cost; Zomato does not make any money as part of this process.

Furthermore, the policy also extends to Zomato’s own marketing efforts. “Please note that this ban also applies to our marketing team – they have been instructed not to use AI-generated images for marketing purposes from now on,” he added.