AI travel agency startup Mindtrip on Tuesday released a feature that lets users save locations and create itineraries from multiple locations across the web.
Mindtrip lets you insert links, such as Reddit posts or blogs, and ask your AI assistant to create an itinerary based on the places mentioned. You can also see these places on a map and easily save them to your favorites or travel list. You can also use YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram links to create a list of places mentioned in the video. Currently, the tool only works with TikTok videos with text overlay. For YouTube videos, the tool uses the transcript to suggest places.
You can also upload screenshots of your tickets or a list of cities you've visited and have Mindtrip's assistant suggest places to visit, bars, and restaurants.
“People don't plan trips in a linear way, yet the travel industry continues to provide the only platform that enables them to do just that,” MindTrip CEO Andy Moss said in a statement.
“We built Start Anywhere to empower people around the world to turn all the amazing travel content they find online into actionable content. Now that's a reality. Reports show that 75% of people get travel inspiration from social sites and online. We're excited to see how travelers use this groundbreaking technology to change the way they plan their vacations.”
With this feature, Mindtrip is also launching its Creator Program: creators can generate their own Mindtrip link and post it alongside their profile and content. When someone clicks on that link, Mindtrip will generate an itinerary based on the creator's content.
Creators can also add photos, videos and recommendations directly to Mindtrip to further customize their AI-generated itineraries. Mindtrip pays creators an unspecified amount for each registered user. The company says creators can earn up to $10,000 a month through the program.
The company said it plans to introduce a revenue-sharing program later this year in which creators will receive a cut of every time a user books a trip through one of their plans.
Mindtrip, which has 12 experienced founders and raised $7 million from Costanoa Ventures last year, was one of the apps OpenAI showed off at its dev day. The product has been in beta testing for a while, but Mindtrip began rolling it out to users in May.
The company said it creates itineraries by combining its own knowledge of over 6.5 million places with OpenAI technology, and that it uses map, link and image overlays to better contextualize the results.
The company plans to introduce a group chat feature and an iOS app for planning trips with family and friends this year.
Mindtrip is not alone: Startups like Layla, which acquired itinerary-making bot Roam Around, Pilot, Byway and Sēkr are all using AI at their core to help travellers plan trips across a range of parameters. Google is also experimenting with AI-powered trip-planning tools.