Google announced yesterday that you can now order food directly through its Search, Maps and Assistant apps. The new functionality integrates with food-ordering services like DoorDash, Postmates, Delivery.com, Slice, and ChowNow, and more are scheduled to follow.
When using Google Maps or Search to find a restaurant, look for the “Order Online” button that ow appears with the results. If a restaurant is participating, you then choose the delivery service, as well as pick up or delivery times.
If you’re using Google Assistant, you say “Hey Google, order food from [restaurant].” And if you’ve ordered a certain meal through one of the delivery partners before, you can say “Hey Google, reorder food from [restaurant],” and your past orders surfaced for you to select again.
Google says the new functionality is available now in thousands of cities across the U.S. The company’s blog post only mentions using your phone, and the animated gifs embedded are all screenshots of a phone in action, so it’s not clear whether food ordering works with other Google Assistant platforms like the Google Hub or other smart displays.
Google’s direct integration with food delivery apps is also further recognition that restaurant delivery is here to stay, and is only going to get bigger. This news comes just a day after DoorDash announced that it had raised another $600 million in funding, indicating investors are still bullish on delivery’s future.
Google’s official mission may be “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” but lately it seems like the company is more interested in helping you eat faster. Yesterday’s announcement means you don’t have to take an extra step of opening delivery apps like DoorDash on your phone when searching for a meal. The company has also released its AI (for the most part) assistant, Duplex, which makes restaurant reservations for you. And if that weren’t enough, Google Wing has gotten approval to make drone deliveries, which are bound to include things like lattes by air.