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Getting an online booking at an in-demand restaurant is proving harder than ever, and it may not be due solely to popularity. Reservation systems are experiencing a wave of AI agents competing with human foodies for a prime table.
Personal AI agents are monitoring booking systems for last-minute cancellations, new table drops, and other availability changes, making it harder to get a slot the old-fashioned way. However, booking companies are unhappy as it puts undue strain on restaurants and their own systems.
Most popular platforms, such as OpenTable and Resy, include in their terms and conditions that you can't use automated systems to secure a booking, noting that they’ll take action against accounts proven to engage in what some call “reservation scalping.”
OpenTable says it "takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for actions taken by an AI agent on behalf of a user." That language appears to have been added to its terms and conditions in mid-2025, according to the Wayback Machine.
Resy, owned by American Express, now actively bans users who overstretch its service and exhibit bot-like behavior. Agentic AI doesn't work the same way as a typical bot, but its behavior can put similar pressure on booking tools.
AI entrepreneur Brian Distelburger built "a personal AI agent named Hannah that runs my life" using the Hermes Agent, Obsidian, and Telegram. He then "spun up a Hermes subagent" to monitor Resy for openings at restaurants that he and his wife like, but it didn't work as expected.
“What I did not realize was how frequently the subagent was hitting Resy," Distelburger tweeted. "I never set a rate limit because, honestly, it didn't occur to me. I was just excited it was working. Meanwhile, this thing is hammering their system like it's trying to get Knicks finals tickets.”
Soon, Distelburger found his Resy account had been suspended without warning, along with an email explaining that the behavior violated Resy’s terms of service. It took him a month of chasing support channels to get back onto Resy.
He isn’t the only person to be swiftly banned. JC Bahr-de Stefano used an agent via the concierge-like AI service, Instinct. The in-beta AI also made enough requests to flag its behavior to Resy: "Roughly 200 API requests per hour, around the clock," Stefano says.
4 Charles Prime Rib in New York City is a popular target for AI agents. In theory, reservations for the hotspot open 21 days in advance at 9 a.m., but your computer mouse is probably no match for Stefano's Instinct agent, which went after it every 10 minutes for two days, with around 18 API calls per window. It meant the Resy system was contacted by the same agent over 100 times per hour, ultimately raising suspicion and leading to a ban.
Stefano's Resy account was reinstated earlier this month, but it came with a stern warning: "Any future instances of misuse may result in a permanent termination of your Resy account(s) & cancelation of all associated AmEx Card products."
Worth the Risk?
For the right reservation, deploying these AI agents might be worth the risk, allowing restaurant-goers to outpace the average person for at least a short period before being caught. If enough people use these tools, humans without them will have little chance of success.
Resy says that's why it doesn't allow third-party bots or agents to access its systems. “Unapproved automated activity can introduce risks to the platform and compromise a fair reservation experience for diners," an American Express spokesperson told Business Insider.
Resy co-founder Ben Leventhal, who no longer works for the booking tool, says, “We are going to see a new layer of services develop on top of platforms like Resy, no question. Consumers will benefit big time. But that layer has to be built legitimately and securely and that is precisely what should happen next.”
Meanwhile, despite the agent crackdowns, Resy and OpenTable have embraced AI integrations. OpenTable recently partnered with Meta’s Muse agentic AI and has teamed up with Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Copilot, Alexa, and more. Resy also has tie-ins with ChatGPT and Claude. None of these tools allows you to skip ahead of a queue like an agent would, but you can set up alerts about table availability and book reservations inside the chatbots.
Some speculate that AI will turn free reservations into a thing of the past, but others note that few restaurants experience 4 Charles-levels of popularity. "Those that do value other criteria over maximizing a few bucks from reservations. Sit-down restaurants remain a hospitality industry," tweeted Deva Hazarika, an entrepreneur currently working on a startup in the food tech space.
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I’ve been a journalist for over a decade after getting my start in tech reporting back in 2013. I joined PCMag in 2025, where I cover the latest developments across the tech sphere, writing about the gadgets and services you use every day. Be sure to send me any tips you think PCMag would be interested in.
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