I Let AI Agents Plan My Vacation—and It Wasn't Terrible

Trains booked, Operator thinks its occupation is done. But I’ll request determination to stay, I punctual it—can it publication a hotel? It asks for much details and I’m purposefully vague, specifying that it should beryllium comfy and conveniently located. Comparing hotels is possibly my slightest favourite facet of question planning, truthful I’m blessed to permission it scrolling done Booking.com. I restrain myself from jumping successful erstwhile I spot it’s acceptable the incorrect dates, but it corrects this itself. It spends a portion surveying an Ibis listing, but ends up choosing a three-star edifice called Martin’s Brugge, which I enactment users person rated arsenic having an fantabulous location.

Now each that’s near is an itinerary. Here, Operator seems to suffer steam. It offers a perfunctory one-day docket that appears to person chiefly been cribbed from a vegetarian question blog. On time 2, it suggests I “visit immoderate remaining attractions oregon museums.” Wow, acknowledgment for the tip.

The time of the travel arrives, and, arsenic I resistance myself retired of furniture astatine 4:30AM, I retrieve wherefore I usually debar aboriginal departures. Still, I get to Brussels without issue. My summons allows for onward travel, but I recognize I don’t cognize wherever I’m going. I occurrence up Operator connected my telephone and inquire which level the adjacent Bruges-bound bid departs from. It searches the Belgian railway timetables. Minutes later, it’s inactive searching. I look up and spot the details connected a presumption display. I get to the level earlier Operator has figured it out.

Bruges is delightful. Given Operator’s lackluster itinerary, I subdivision out. This benignant of probe task is cleanable for a ample connection model, I realize—it doesn’t necessitate agentic capabilities. ChatGPT, Operator’s OpenAI sibling, gives maine a overmuch much thorough plan, plotting activities by the hr with suggestions of not conscionable wherever to eat, but what to bid (Flemish stew astatine De Halve Mann brewery). I besides effort Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, and their plans are similar: Walk to the marketplace square; spot the belfry tower; sojourn the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Bruges is simply a tiny city, and I can’t assistance but wonderment if this is simply the modular tourer route, oregon if the AI models are each getting their accusation from the aforesaid sources.

Various travel-specific AI tools are trying to interruption done this genericness. I concisely effort MindTrip, which provides a representation alongside a written itinerary, offers to personalize recommendations based connected a quiz, and includes collaborative features for shared trips. CEO Andy Moss says it expands connected wide LLM capabilities by leveraging a travel-specific “knowledge base” containing things similar upwind information and real-time availability.