Why Hearst built an AI voice assistant tool for Delish

What started as a weekend experiment is now a fully-fledged AI voice assistant on Hearst’s recipe site Delish, helping home cooks follow recipes hands-free.

Hearst’s senior director of AI initiatives, Alexandria Redmon wanted a personal chef assistant — something she could talk to while cooking, without smearing her phone with batter. Using OpenAI’s GPT large language model (Hearst has a content licensing deal with OpenAI), Redmon built the prototype in a few days. It’s aimed at helping to solve everyday kitchen problems: running multiple cooking timers, managing ingredient swaps, and navigating recipes hands-free. 

Redmon teamed up with Delish editorial director Joanna Saltz and director of product Ashley Szwec. They spent five months developing the “Cooking Coach” voice assistant, which rolled out across the Delish site this month. It’s trained only on Delish’s content of over 30,000 recipes on the 10-year-old site.

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