Who decides which AI agents can book your restaurant.

In October 2026 a New York startup called Spot was getting attention for booking tables at in-demand restaurants for its members.

Three weeks ago I wrote about Resy banning a diner whose AI agent was hitting it 200 times an hour for a table at 4 Charles. Since then a small New York startup called Spot has been getting attention for doing the same job without getting its members banned.

Spot charges $15 or $50 a month to find tables at the most in-demand restaurants in the city. Its own agents watch availability using data that doesn’t need a login, and only touch the member’s account to make the booking. The founder says that approach cost him several of his own accounts along the way. When a member can’t make it, Spot can pass the booking to another member so nobody pays a cancellation fee.

If I ran one of those restaurants, I’d want to know about the transfers. A table you released to the public was booked by a service you’ve never dealt with, then handed to someone else. You still get the cover. But a subscription app is now partly deciding who sits at your most sought-after table on Saturday, and you didn’t set its criteria.

Ben Leventhal, who co-founded Resy, said after the bans that a new layer of services will grow on top of platforms like Resy, and that it has to be built legitimately and securely. I agree with him. Resy restaurants became bookable inside Anthropic’s Claude in April and inside OpenAI’s ChatGPT this summer. A fortnight ago DoorDash opened a beta of an MCP connector for corporate ordering.

Agents are getting in either way. Which ones get in is currently the platform’s call. ChatGPT and Claude are in because Resy signed them. A personal assistant polling on a diner’s behalf is out because Resy banned it. Spot is somewhere in between and tolerated for now. Its founders say they’d like to help restaurants prioritise regulars or locals, and they’ve had a few informal chats with owners. But the rules on who gets in are being agreed between platforms and AI companies, and restaurants aren’t party to those deals.

If you run somewhere with more demand than tables, ask your reservation platform which AI services can book you and whether you have any say in it.