Trains booked, Operator thinks its job is finished. However I’ll want someplace to remain, I remind it—can it e-book a resort? It asks for extra particulars and I’m purposefully imprecise, specifying that it ought to be cozy and conveniently situated. Evaluating inns is probably my least favourite side of journey planning, so I’m completely happy to depart it scrolling by way of Reserving.com. I restrain myself from leaping in after I see it’s set the fallacious dates, however it corrects this itself. It spends some time surveying an Ibis itemizing, however finally ends up selecting a three-star resort known as Martin’s Brugge, which I word customers have rated as having a superb location.
Now all that’s left is an itinerary. Right here, Operator appears to lose steam. It presents a perfunctory one-day schedule that seems to have primarily been cribbed from a vegetarian journey weblog. On day 2, it suggests I “go to any remaining points of interest or museums.” Wow, thanks for the tip.
The day of the journey arrives, and, as I drag myself off the bed at 4:30AM, I keep in mind why I often keep away from early departures. Nonetheless, I get to Brussels with out concern. My ticket permits for onward journey, however I understand I don’t know the place I’m going. I fireplace up Operator on my telephone and ask which platform the following Bruges-bound practice departs from. It searches the Belgian railway timetables. Minutes later, it’s nonetheless looking. I lookup and see the small print on a station show. I get to the platform earlier than Operator has figured it out.
Bruges is pleasant. Given Operator’s lackluster itinerary, I department out. This sort of analysis process is ideal for a big language mannequin, I understand—it doesn’t require agentic capabilities. ChatGPT, Operator’s OpenAI sibling, provides me a way more thorough plan, plotting actions by the hour with strategies of not simply the place to eat, however what to order (Flemish stew at De Halve Mann brewery). I additionally attempt Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, and their plans are related: Stroll to the market sq.; see the belfry tower; go to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Bruges is a small metropolis, and I can’t assist however surprise if that is merely the usual vacationer route, or if the AI fashions are all getting their data from the identical sources.
Varied travel-specific AI instruments are attempting to interrupt by way of this genericness. I briefly attempt MindTrip, which supplies a map alongside a written itinerary, presents to personalize suggestions based mostly on a quiz, and contains collaborative options for shared journeys. CEO Andy Moss says it expands on broad LLM capabilities by leveraging a travel-specific “information base” containing issues like climate knowledge and real-time availability.
Courtesy of Victoria Turk