Biryani with aloo. Kosha mangsho. Egg kathi rolls. Jhal muri. Mishti doi. These are just some of the dishes that come to mind when one thinks of Kolkata — but apparently not if you ask Zomato AI. A former Zomato employee has called out the company’s AI chatbot for suggesting Mexican wraps when asked to recommend classic Kolkata delicacies.
“As some people say about Apple products ‘Jobs would have never launched this’. This very much feels like something Deepi would not have signed off on,” he added. Criticising the AI offering in no uncertain terms, he claimed that Zomato founder and former CEO Deepinder Goyal would never have approved such a product. The post also reached Jatin Katyal, Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Zomato. He agreed that the chatbot needed improvements.
Arnav Gupta yesterday shared a screenshot of his conversation with the Zomato AI where he asked the chatbot for “Kolkata special fast foods like egg rolls”. Instead of suggesting iconic Kolkata dishes, the chatbot asked Gupta to try “Mexican Zappi Wrap”.
Gupta, currently a Meta employee who earlier worked as Engineering Head, Consumer App for Zomato, shared a screenshot of the exchange on X.
