Inspiration
Many restaurants lose customers because calls go unanswered during peak hours and reservations are handled manually. This leads to missed bookings, double reservations, and frustrated customers. Hiring a full-time receptionist is expensive and not realistic for small and medium restaurants. We built BookIT to remove human bottlenecks from reservations while keeping the experience natural and human-like.
What it does
browser-based AI receptionist that lets customers speak directly on a restaurant’s website to book a table. The AI understands natural speech, extracts booking details, checks real-time availability, prevents double bookings, and confirms the reservation instantly using a human-like voice.
How we built it
Users speak through the web browser using the microphone. The audio is sent to a Flask backend, where ElevenLabs converts speech to text. Gemini extracts structured booking information such as date, time, and number of guests. The system then checks Google Calendar for availability and either creates a reservation or asks for another time.
Challenges we ran into
Our main challenge was connecting all parts of the system into one seamless workflow. Each component worked on its own, but making the browser audio, speech-to-text, intent extraction, and calendar booking communicate reliably required careful coordination. Small mismatches in data flow or timing could break the entire pipeline, so ensuring smooth end-to-end integration was the hardest part.
Accomplishments that we're proud of ## What we learned
We learned how to design and debug a full AI pipeline, not just individual features. This project taught us how to connect multiple services into a single system, manage data flow between components, and ensure every step hands off cleanly to the next.
What's next for BookIT
Next, we plan to make BookIT fully conversational. The AI will respond naturally and handle frequently asked questions such as hours, location, menu items, and policies, turning it into a complete AI receptionist rather than only a booking tool.
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