At JET, our mission is to empower everyday convenience. But "convenience" doesn’t look the same for everyone. To achieve our vision of evolving from a menu app into a highly personal, AI-powered assistant, our technology must be intuitive and accessible to every single customer, regardless of how they interact with their screen.
For customers who are blind or have low vision, the app experience isn't about vibrant food photography; it’s about how well our technology "speaks". We have been working closely with users to understand how they interact with their smartphone and our app. Many blind users rely on VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader, to navigate their phone using a series of touch gestures like swiping and double-tapping.
When a customer uses a screen reader, our app must provide a logical, conversational flow that guides them through our 362,000 global partners—from their favorite local Italian spot to essential grocery and retail items. Through user feedback, we have adapted our technology to better suit their needs:
- Minimising the "Swipe Tax": Every additional swipe required to find information adds effort for screen reader users. We are streamlining layouts to ensure critical info—like basket totals and restaurant names—is announced first.
- Logical Reading Order: Our code ensures a predictable structure, keeping navigation bars in a "sticky" position at the bottom of the screen for immediate access to account and order status.
- Meaningful Labeling: We add programmatic labels to buttons, so that instead of a screen reader simply saying "button," it describes specific actions like "Add to Basket" or "View Menu".
- Consistent Experience: Some disabled users report preferring the usability of apps over websites. We focus on maintaining a unified platform to provide a consistent, high-quality experience across the countries where we operate.
Building on this foundation of accessibility, we are taking the next leap by integrating our new AI Voice Assistant directly into the user experience. This represents our shift into an "AI-first" era, where our platform acts as a digital companion that learns and adapts to the unique needs of every user.
The next evolution of our platform is the introduction of Agentic AI within our voice assistant framework. Unlike traditional chatbots that follow rigid "if-then" logic, our Agentic AI functions as a proactive digital guide designed to:
- Anticipate Needs: Using sophisticated data analytics, the AI understands individual user preferences to suggest restaurants among our 362,000 global partners without requiring complex visual browsing or complex gestures.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP): Our assistant leverages native audio cues to handle "loosely phrased" conversations, allowing users to order through natural speech.Complex Journey Simplification: The AI handles the "heavy lifting" of the order process—from menu customisation to checkout—reducing the need for multi-gesture touch interactions.
- Bridge the Digital Divide: For customers, the assistant acts as a guide through our hundreds of thousands of partners and their millions of products, serving tens of millions of customers with increased accuracy and speed.
We believe that by designing for the most challenging use cases, we build a better product for everyone. As we continue to integrate AI-driven personalisation and voice-activated technology, we are ensuring that our "digital companion" is a helpful, reliable partner for every customer, in every neighborhood we serve. We are constantly on the lookout for ways to make our service ever more inclusive.
We recently announced plans to integrate into Alexa+ in the UK. With Alexa+, customers will be able to have natural conversations to explore new cuisines, restaurants and dishes across well-known brands and local customer favourites. They will allow everyone to be able to quickly order their regular from their favourite restaurant. This will offer yet another way to easily access the everyday convenience we offer.
Building the future of food and retail delivery means ensuring that nobody is left behind in the rapid evolution of instant delivery.
Not yet, but Just Eat Takeaway is integrating with Alexa+ in the UK to allow customers to explore restaurants and place orders using natural voice commands. This is expected to go live later this year.
JET uses Agentic AI and Voice-First assistants to help blind users navigate menus and place orders through natural conversation.
The "Swipe Tax" refers to the excessive number of gestures a screen-reader user must perform to find information. JET minimizes this by streamlining layouts and prioritizing critical info in the reading order.