Frictionless Digitalization: DiDi Food Automates Restaurant Onboarding and Support with AI
To streamline and simplify the operation of restaurants that offer home delivery service, DiDi Food has introduced DiMi, an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered platform designed to facilitate the registration of new establishments and provide immediate administrative support.
The main historical bottleneck in the onboarding of new restaurants to delivery platforms has been the process of registration and document validation. Previously, the approval of a venue took several days, due mainly to delays that occurred when there were errors in the files sent, and slow back-and-forth communication was required to correct them.
DiDi Food's new solution directly addresses this inefficiency:
- Accessible channel: The service operates directly via WhatsApp to ensure fluid and familiar communication for restaurateurs.
- Reduced times: With the use of DiMi's AI, the complete registration and approval process is reduced to just 14 hours, which is equivalent to a 68% decrease in waiting time.
- Scale impact: This streamlining of operational flows will potentially benefit the approximately 65,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) already registered on the delivery platform.
"What we want is for them to be able to automate the process to improve their day-to-day operations," said Verónica Cevallos, DiDi Food's marketing director, regarding the objectives of this technological launch.
Administrative support and commercial advice by the end of 2026
The automation of partner registration is just the first stage of the platform. DiDi Food plans to incorporate two additional functions before the end of 2026 to strengthen daily support for businesses:
- Immediate operational support: DiMi will integrate a function to resolve daily administrative queries from restaurants—including complex inquiries such as invoicing—in less than five seconds, with the expectation of automatically solving 95% of the most common questions.
- Algorithmic commercial consulting: The virtual assistant will offer strategic advice by suggesting optimal promotions and sales dynamics. The AI will analyze consumption data to show administrators which menu items will achieve the best commercial results and what the ideal discount level they should apply to maximize their revenue.
From next+, we believe that the launch of DiMi by DiDi Food confirms that the success of collaborative economy platforms is no longer measured solely by the critical mass of consumers or the speed of their delivery drivers, but by the reduction of friction in the experience of their commercial partners. By transferring the corporate registration process to a mass-used channel like WhatsApp and reducing onboarding times from days to just 14 hours, the company removes entry barriers for SMEs, which represent the true engine of the restaurant sector. Towards the end of 2026, the true test for DiMi will be the effectiveness of its predictive engine for suggesting promotions: if the algorithm successfully guides the discount strategies of small businesses to increase their profitability without compromising their margins, AI will consolidate not only as a customer service tool, but as a digitized business consultant indispensable for the survival of culinary SMEs in the competitive Latin American delivery market.