With high hopes of uncovering hidden gems in our respective home cities and each of us having $100 (£77) burning a hole in our pockets, Natasha Bernal in London and Amanda Hoover in New York decided to enlist the help of AI to plan out the perfect day. To assist us, we turned to Littlefoot, an AI-powered chatbot that specializes in local discovery and can generate personalized experiences in 161 cities worldwide. Littlefoot was developed by Bigfoot, a startup founded by former executives from Airbnb, namely Alex Ward, James Robinson, and Shane Lykins. Bigfoot claims that their platform combines the knowledge and capabilities of various AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, Anthropic, and Perplexity, as well as data from 50 information sources like Tripadvisor and Google. Essentially, Littlefoot uses three different language models, acting as "AI agents, " to create customized itineraries. We provided Littlefoot with our starting locations, dates, and times, along with specific preferences: Amanda requested a dog-friendly tour in New York, while Natasha wanted to avoid crowded tourist hotspots in London. The results turned out to be quite extraordinary. Currently, Littlefoot lacks contextual understanding when it comes to time, space, and what humans might find interesting. Its recommendations ranged from very niche suggestions (such as climbing up a hill in South East London) to exceedingly vague ones (like visiting the London Zoo without any further instruction). We noticed that certain attractions, like the London Eye, the Namco Funscape arcade in Romford, and a cycling studio in Brooklyn, kept reappearing in the recommendations, leading us to suspect potential paid advertising. However, Bigfoot has assured us that this is not the case and they have no plans to offer sponsored picks. Littlefoot suggested back-to-back gym sessions in London, a concert and helicopter tour in New York that were beyond our budget, restaurants for lunch that only opened in the evening, and itineraries that would have had us criss-crossing our respective cities.

In London, the map function offered by Bigfoot depicted two out of the four suggested destinations in incorrect locations, which the company acknowledges and states that they are working on resolving. "While we anticipate facing challenges typical of an early-stage company, we are confident in our ability to address them as we acquire more resources and refine our approach based on user feedback, " says Alex Ward, CEO of Bigfoot. "We're a preseed startup of six individuals, and we acknowledge that itineraries are not yet perfect. However, we're committed to doing everything we can to reach that point in the near future. " Bigfoot explains that its current features heavily rely on the provided location and how users phrase their preferences. They have conducted testing with 70 to 80 alpha users this year and are continuously refining the platform based on the received feedback. An Excursion Around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London For my day's itinerary, I opted to explore the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a sprawling 560-acre sporting village boasting pedal boats, a track cycling arena, and tennis courts. Despite my initial excitement, the experience turned out to be underwhelming. My day commenced at 10 am from WIRED's office in Central London. The first stop was in East London, where we planned to dine at a place called Pizza Union. However, it turned out that the eatery didn't open until 11 am, and contrary to Littlefoot's claim, their slices were not priced at £6. With the help of Google and my companion for the day, Sophie Johal, a fellow Londoner and WIRED staffer, we made our way to Aldgate East, a location that I can confidently say is rarely visited voluntarily.