AI assist

TableStack offers four optional AI helpers that make a host's job easier. All of them are advisory — they suggest, they never act. They can't change a booking, seat a party, or cancel anything on their own. This article explains what each does and how they're controlled.

The four helpers

Guest briefing. A one-paragraph host briefing before a guest arrives — the kind of quick read a great maître d' keeps in their head. For example: "Third visit, celebrated an anniversary last time, prefers a window table, shellfish allergy." It's assembled from the guest's own history and profile.

No-show risk score. A badge on a reservation estimating how likely the party is to not show, based on their history and booking pattern. It surfaces as a colour-coded flag on the reservation book so you can confirm a risky booking — it never auto-cancels anything. Every booking is scored quietly in the background, but the badge only appears once the risk is elevated — new guests with no history sit at a low baseline and stay unbadged, so the flags you do see are the ones worth a call.

Smart table suggestion. When you're seating a party, a suggested table that weighs party size, the guest's preferences and how loaded your servers are. You're always free to seat wherever you like; it's a hint, not a rule.

Natural-language search. Search your reservation book and your guest book in plain English — "regulars with birthdays this month", "guests we haven't seen in 90 days" — instead of fiddling with filters. A guest-book answer can be saved as a smart list in one tap, and the list stays live as your book changes. (Searching a plain name always works instantly, with or without this helper switched on.)

They're off unless you turn them on

Every helper is a per-venue switch, off by default. You opt in venue by venue, and turning one off is an instant kill switch for that feature. On top of that, the AI helpers run on Pro plans and only when the platform has an AI provider configured — so nothing reaches an AI service unless everything lines up.

Private and unobtrusive

Three principles govern how the AI behaves:

• Advisory only. It surfaces information and suggestions; it never mutates your data.
• Organization-bounded. A helper only ever sees data inside your own organization — never another restaurant's guests or bookings.
• Queued. AI work runs in the background, so it never slows down a booking, a search, or the floor.

There's also a daily usage budget behind the scenes, so AI features stay predictable.

What this affects

• The reservation book — no-show badges and briefings appear alongside bookings.
• Seating a party — table suggestions appear as you seat.

What affects this

• Your plan and settings — Pro plan, plus each venue's per-feature toggle.
• The guest book — briefings and risk scores are only as good as the guest history you keep.