Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest technological advance to help make our lives easier. It can take seconds to find information that might manually take hours of searching. So, it stands to reason, that using AI to help with travel plans could take a very time consuming project and turn it into one that can be done in seconds, right? Well, sort of…

By all means, DO use AI to help plan that trip or once-in-a-lifetime vacation! But, don't just blindly accept the information it offers, as AI should be just one of the tools in your planning toolbox. 

You see, AI is trained on what it sees out there on the internet. And, if you have spent any time on the internet you know that the information varies wildly from extremely useful (and correct) to complete nonsense (that could even be dangerous in some cases). And when the information to draw from is just not there, AI will use generic language as filler. You’ll find an awful lot of hotels are “comfortable” and “cozy”, and an awful lot of pubs have a “traditional atmosphere”—even if they don’t. 

So, what can AI do that would be useful for trip planning? You’ll find chatbots helpful for getting answers to questions you might ask of a person—what’s the place like at night? What are the best times of year to go? What’s a landmark that could be visited in the space of an afternoon? You’re not necessarily going to get good responses to these types of queries from a search engine.

That extends to follow-up questions too. You can ask for locations that are similar to other places you know or have enjoyed, or ask about the facilities at a particular location, or ask about places that are less popular with tourists. Often AI will recommended spots that wouldn’t normally be mentioned in travel round-ups because it is pulling from local sources and not just the big sites that the search engines look at first.

These AI interfaces are also useful if you’re not sure where to begin with your plans—you can ask about cities or beaches to see within a particular distance from where you are, for example, or about new destinations that are like other destinations you’ve previously been to. What’s more, these chatbots have an almost inexhaustible bank of suggestions to draw upon.

Just be sure to do your homework (sorry, you can't get off that easy) and double check any recommendations with listings on portals like Google Maps and TripAdvisor, as well as checking with venues directly, before you set off. Of course these resources aren’t always 100 percent accurate either, but they’re more likely to be up to date and feature first-hand knowledge.

And, don't just blindly trust everything you read online!