Can AI answer restaurant guests in other languages?
Short answer: yes. An AI guest agent answers your phone, website chat, WhatsApp, email and social messages in the language a guest reaches out in, takes the booking, and hands anything sensitive to a person, without you hiring for a single language. It reads from one knowledge base of your own menus, hours, policies and prices, so a call in French, a chat in Spanish and an email in German all get the same correct answer in your restaurant's voice, around the clock.
Why it matters for a UK restaurant
The UK is one of the world's busiest destinations, and a large share of the guests trying to book your tables do not speak English as a first language. The numbers are not small.
Source: VisitBritain, 2024.
Two of the top three source markets, France and Germany, mostly do not speak English as a first language (the third is the USA). Plenty of those visitors are standing outside your window, phone in hand, deciding whether to call, message or walk on.
And people do not just prefer their own language, they act on it. In a large study of online buyers, most said they will only go ahead when the information is in a language they read comfortably.
Source: CSA Research, 2020 (8,709 consumers, 29 countries).
That is a general finding across online buyers, not a restaurant-specific number, but the logic carries straight to your front door. A guest who cannot get a clear answer in their language does not usually wait. They book the restaurant that answered them properly.
Speaking the guest's language, the usual ways compared
Most restaurants already try to cover this. Here is how the common approaches hold up against an AI guest agent that answers on every channel.
| Approach | Speaks the guest's language | Around the clock | Takes the booking | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A staff member who happens to speak it | Only that one language, only on shift | No | Sometimes | Slow and patchy, and gone the day they leave |
| Tell the guest to email in English | No | No | Rarely | Loses the 40% who will not proceed in another language |
| A translation app passed around the floor | Clumsy, not while busy | No | No | Errors on the things that matter, like allergens |
| An AI guest agent (Sorino) | Yes, many languages, on every channel | Yes, day and night | Yes, from real availability | Governed: hands off to a person when it should |
The difference that matters: the first three help sometimes, when the right person is free. An agent answers every call, chat, email and message in the guest's language the moment it arrives, and confirms the booking there and then. See how it handles reservations and dietary and allergen questions.
What a good system will not do, in any language
Answering in someone's language is only worth it if the answers are right. So a few lines we hold, and they hold in every language:
It will not guess on allergens or safety. Allergen and dietary questions are answered from your own written, checked record and passed to the kitchen, never guessed. If it is not certain, the guest is told a person will confirm. A translation app improvising an allergen answer is exactly the risk this removes.
It will not pretend to be a person, or handle the hard ones alone. Anything sensitive, a complaint or a complex request, is handed to a member of your team with the full conversation attached, so nothing is lost in translation or out of sight.
It will not replace your front of house. It covers the calls and messages your team cannot get to while they work the room, and keeps everything on the record. Your people still run the floor and look after the guests in it.
Frequently asked
Which languages can it handle? The common European and world languages your guests actually use, set when you go live. It answers in the language the guest wrote or spoke in, so a call in French, a chat in Spanish and an email in German all get the same correct answer from your own information.
Will it sound like a robot? No. It answers in your restaurant's own voice and tone, from your own menus, hours, policies and prices, and hands anything delicate to a person. It does not pretend to be human and it does not improvise.
Is it safe for allergen and dietary questions in another language? Those are answered from a written, checked record and passed to the kitchen, never guessed, and the guest is told when a person will confirm. That rule holds in every language.
How long to get live? About six weeks. The first weeks load your knowledge base and set the rules for when to hand over to a person. Then voice and website chat go live and get tuned, then email and social messages are added.
This is the restaurants edition. There is a wider set of reads across hotels, restaurants and bars. Read more on the Sorino blog →
The short version
- The UK took 41.2 million inbound visits in 2024, and many of those guests do not speak English first.
- People buy in their own language: 76% prefer it, 40% will not proceed in another language at all.
- An AI guest agent answers the phone, chat, email and social in the guest's language, around the clock.
- Allergens are answered from a written, checked record, never guessed, in any language, with a person to confirm.
- It works alongside your front of house, not instead of it, and goes live in about six weeks.
Sources
- Inbound visits to the UK were 41.2 million in 2024, up 9%, with £31.5 billion spent; top markets USA, France and Germany. VisitBritain, 2024. visitbritain.org
- 76% of consumers prefer to buy in their own language and 40% will never buy from a site in another language. A general consumer finding (8,709 consumers, 29 countries), applied here by argument. CSA Research, 2020. csa-research.com
Get started
Hear it answer a guest in their own language.
Build an agent on your own restaurant, ask it a question the way a French or German guest would, and hear how it answers, before you commit to anything.