First came the statements from reproductive organizations. Then came the tech companies. The day after the Supreme Court decided not to block a law in Texas banning most abortions after six weeks, Dallas-based Match Group, which owns Tinder, OkCupid, and Hinge, sent a memo to its employees. "The company generally does not take political stands unless it is relevant to our business," CEO Shar Dubey wrote. "But in this instance, I personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent."

Yelp, YELP -1.69% the company known for its 5-star-ratings system for businesses, is adding to its roster of services in a bid to uphold its own popularity. The San Francisco-based company started out by giving users a way to see what others have said about a business or what dishes are most popular at a restaurant. Since its founding in 2004, Yelp has amassed some 127 million reviews in areas such as retail, restaurants, home and local services and beauty in more than 30 countries. Now, pressed by rivals such as Google, which includes its own ratings system for local businesses in its search results, Yelp has expanded the services it offers. Users can now make restaurant reservations, get price quotes from businesses, hold a place in line for a restaurant, get food delivered and earn cash from a loyalty program.

Behind the scenes, Yelp is improving its restaurant listings using your food porn pictures. That photo you took of you eating soft serve at your local ice cream shop? From that photo alone, the AI can determine whether the ice cream shop has outdoor seating, the ambience, and whether it's for couples of families. The AI will eventually be able to identify dishes in the photos by analyzing the color, texture, and shapes of the images. The result is photos and restaurant profiles that will be auto-captioned with phrases like, "good for kids, casual and loud atmosphere," with a percentile accuracy rating.

That burrito in your hands--so warm, so gooey, the richness cut by cilantro and red-hot spice. Before you take a bite, you'd better take a picture. Multiply that impulse by tens of thousands and you get Yelp's database of images, drawn from burrito joints, cocktail bars, and more. Until recently, Yelp was dependent on users to tag their images with search-friendly metadata. But now, using the kind of deep learning techniques that are transforming the field of AI, Yelp is starting to see the business benefits of using software intelligence to power its listing pages and user recommendations.