Using AI to Plan Trips and Create Itineraries

AI & Travel Planning

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[00:00:17] Nasreen: Hi, I'm Nasreen. We are here with another episode of Time to Talk Travel, with Des and Ciaran and Mo, and we are going to talk about AI. So do you let robots plan your vacation is . How do you use AI in travel planning and itineraries and where can it help and where do you need to go in by hand? Ciaran, I'm going to go to you first. This was Ciaran's topic. She has things to say.

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They really wanted to make sure that they did a section where there are places to stay and they wanted to know, where could they stay, that there'd be a place to eat and that there'd be gourmet meals. They just asked chat GPT plan an itinerary for me with stops that have B&Bs that have hosted meals.

They then got a list, here's an itinerary with potential stops and places to stay. They called all those places and started narrowing it down. So they were like, at this stop, tell me all the places that I could buy food, tell me all the places. So instead of, doing that as a manual Google search, you're just basically saving time.

The thing with AI is that, as we know, it's not always accurate, so you really have to double check. My brother tried to use it for a trip in Portugal, and I know you mentioned you're going to Portugal soon, and he asked for a driving itinerary with major sites in Portugal. But not everything was up to date and not everything was open the time of year that he was going, but he was able to get a great route.

Go from here to here and here's the major sites in each location, bada bing bada boom. It just figured it all out.

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[00:02:34] Ciaran: the better. So if you said what is there to do in March in this neighborhood in Sao Paulo for a foodie?

You want to give the AI hooks to hang on. It should be food, it should be this time of year, it should be in this specific location.

So you can start broad, but the more specific you are, the better results you're going to get. But still, you got to make sure that it's.

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Okay, so put some specifics behind that and a budget, it the opposite way. I'm sure And say, okay, I've got 2, 000 for it is, whatever your budget is Otherwise I would just be going to TikTok and being

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Essentially, you're always assuming you're going to ask it follow up questions, but you're setting it up for what it's looking for and what skills it has first, because there's been a bunch of different studies done where it digs deeper if it thinks it already knows it, where before it would say, I don't have access to that information.

Then next up. Okay. Now to these sites, can you add in how far between them and where I should stay and eat at each destination, and then it will add it into what it had above. Now, I'm going to do my big plug for AI here because I don't use Chat GPT. I do occasionally when it involves something creative, but I am a perplexity AI girl.

I love it. I will put my link in the show notes and you should go check it out. They are a company out of California and they can show you where every suggestion came from. So for example, Ciaran, I know you're going to Utah soon, right?

So I've got please provide a travel itinerary for an adventurous trip to Utah that has a variety of stop options. And then it will show you not only the answer of it asked me questions before it generated it, and it said, how many days are you going for? And so I was able to choose that I.

And then it lists out the days, but it shows me the sources. So whenever it quotes something, I can click on the little indicator of where it came from and go see what sites it pulled in and whether they're trustworthy or read more if I need to. And then I asked it a follow-up question of, okay, that's fantastic.

Thank you for the itinerary because I always thank the robots in case they take over. Yeah, I know. And so I'm very

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[00:05:16] Nasreen: them to like me. And then I say, can you add in, a suggestion for where to stay and eat for each one and how far between? And so it added in distance, accommodation, dining.

But before it added in accommodation, it asked me if I preferred. Hotels, campgrounds, lodges, or Airbnbs. I can also, again, see all the sources for that. So there were 22 sources that went into the original itinerary, and I could go to each of them and vet them if I needed to.

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that's what I called it.

I was in five or six different countries. And so I plugged in Roam Around. It's the guys behind booking.com, Skyscanner and Paris Hilton. But if you go to I think it's ask layla.com, same thing. It will build you an itinerary and it will say, how many days do you have?

You can tailor it down to what you want, but that's what I did for the travel bender. And it saved me so much time and effort again. I had to go back in and confirm and validate, okay, this place is still there. I used it for Santorini as well, but it was nice to have something spit out to me literally in 30 seconds.

What would've taken me an hour or two to research. And I had already researched to an extent and I did a comparison contrast thing where I looked at everything it told me to do. At one point I remember in Santorini, I totally forgotten that I had done this little itinerary and I had my own notes from TikTok and we were doing the TikTok route.

I wasn't looking at my other thing and. A girl that we ran into on our flight, was like, oh, I'm going to go to this a Moody Bay place for dinner tonight. Do you guys want to come too? We all went together and I wrote in my notes Amoudi Bay because I like to keep track of where I went on my trip.

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[00:07:05] Mo: What did you do that through?

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This stuff's everywhere now, but I will say, Ciaran, it's a hard ask. I've never heard anyone that went to hike the Appalachian to eat gourmet meals, that one's far outfield to me because it's usually camping and you eat when it was in your backpack kind of thing.

But hey, if it gave them something great,

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The second column should be a hotel. The third column should be the price per night. You can literally dictate what the output is of your query, so you can get pretty granular with some of your prompt engineering if you want to go there.

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[00:08:54] Mo: But I think if you're like independent traveler, I don't use

travel agents, like hardly. But if you are a travel agent person, you're right.

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that itinerary to your travel agent and say, here's the itinerary I'm interested in. What do you think of it? Help me book it.

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Same thing with planning.

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[00:09:39] Nasreen: A little bit.

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[00:09:41] Nasreen: That's why I used the one with the footnotes because I can just be like, Hey, I want to go somewhere in March that is around this number of degrees and doesn't cost an amazing amount. And it's not their peak season and it's going to spit out, this many suggestions for me and tell me what the benefits of each one are.

Now I've narrowed it down 'because I will look through the list and pick a couple to focus on.

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There's over 400 types of cheese. It just come flying by.

I need to go to London just for this. Now Chat GPT I don't think was going to give me the cheese trolley plates.

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know what I need.

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trolleys near Ciaran in California?

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[00:10:38] Mo: Ciaran needs a

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[00:10:43] Mo: Oh, okay. I was like, it would literally kill me.

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There's, it's not going to give you this week's specials.

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[00:11:19] Nasreen: But

tell it.

It's a local entertainment reporter in Houston covering current events and. Happenings in the community, please, write a report on what's happening this weekend and see if it does it.

Perplexity pulls from real time.

It pulls from news. I was at a conference in an AI talk where the guy's talking about AI and its limitations and he is talking about what works and what doesn't. And he's sitting there going, for instance, right now, if you asked AI, who the top whatever player in tennis was, 'because it had recently changed.

He said it wouldn't have the answer. Perplexity did.

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Texas this

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There are segments of API and code written to pull in things that are AI generated about deals.

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[00:12:21] Mo: Mm hmm.

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[00:12:29] Mo: Yeah, it seems to be a little hit and miss, right? I just pulled it up for Kemah, Texas this weekend. It has a daddy daughter dance at the Blue Lagoon, okay, three parks, one pass, a New Year's Eve family celebration, so I think that's a little out of date,

Even TikTok.

I got to really find what's going on by going to the Places I Know's websites to figure out what they have going on. And I just ran into this, where they don't necessarily have it on their website. They're like, oh, you

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[00:13:16] Mo: oh

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[00:13:18] Mo: We Should be doing more on that, to be honest.

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I stretched it from Atlanta to do, a national thing and it gave me a whole spew of different things. It's super interesting. So that's another good one.

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[00:13:53] Des: Super helpful.

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asked me what area I was looking in. London was one of the suggestions. It showed me, I think a bunch and definitely the one you were talking about. So then I asked, I said, amazing.

Thank you. 'because you got to thank the robot. And said, are there, similar experiences? I'm looking for places in California and it has provided some dedicated cheese shops and restaurants along with good cheese platters and boards.

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[00:14:25] Des: the record, we thank the computers and the Siri. We thank them in the south too. I thought that was just a southern thing. We always say

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[00:14:34] Des: Yes.

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[00:14:36] Nasreen: If there uprising I am being respectful of them.

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Do you remember that? It was some event, some brand. It was big old baby expo. We both made bucks off baby stuff for a while. Travel's our real jam though.

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[00:14:58] Mo: you shouldn't have told me this, went on what's going on on Facebook this weekend

around me, and somebody's turning 40 and only two people have RSVPd.

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[00:15:09] Mo: go to her

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with all of your friends, they would not know what hit them. You guys have so much fun every weekend.

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[00:15:21] Des: need a reality show. Just your circle of friends on the weekends, because every week I see it on

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[00:15:27] Mo: A weekend, you saw my Monday

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[00:15:37] Mo: I just feel

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[00:15:38] Mo: me sad. Did they not?

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The technology exists for me to say, ignore this. Not into it. Stop showing it to me, especially on Facebook marketplace. I don't, I've already clicked on that picture three times and been fooled by the initial image. I don't want to see it ever again.

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[00:16:15] Nasreen: don't care.

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[00:16:18] Mo: Yeah, but that's the ad. She's away. If I'm looking at couches or

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[00:16:28] Nasreen: like maybe she does.

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No.

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yes. I

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see

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[00:16:34] Ciaran: friend activities

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[00:16:37] Ciaran: jealous of.

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birthday this year.

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[00:16:43] Des: do not dismiss that. My

kids play d and they are into it, man, lemme tell you.

What

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[00:16:53] Des: want to

go? Yeah.

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sparkly dress on

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[00:16:57] Nasreen: it's my birthday.

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would

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[00:17:02] Des: a Yes. They would adopt you. I seriously, Mo is now in charge of my 55th birthday

party.

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[00:17:11] Nasreen: Don't go and address,

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[00:17:12] Nasreen: but

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again. Going down a

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[00:17:16] Des: Do you remember that Mo, when you did that at a party?

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[00:17:23] Des: Was going down a slide, wasn't it?

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like six

hours And then we went back to the hotel and that seemed like a good idea with the new friend that I met

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happening. Mo is going to plan Des's birthday with AI and we're all going to let you know how it went.

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[00:17:54] Mo: No.

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[00:17:55] Mo: I have a metal plate and 12 screws for my ankle, you'll never forget Def Leppard.

Nope. And I didn't spill my bottle either, so.

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[00:18:05] Mo: You guys haven't seen that video, clearly, have

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[00:18:14] Mo: the It's not public, it's very, uh, but it made its rounds very

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[00:18:19] Mo: I'll send to you. I will lose all credibility I've ever

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It will now, because enough people wrote about it. If you're planning ahead, just be open to other things too. And like Ciaran said, confirm, validate everything you read, and make sure it's open that time of year.

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suggestion.

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[00:18:57] Ciaran: is to use it to put together handy lists of emergency numbers, roadside assistance numbers, police numbers, fire numbers, pharmacies, doctors, things that you might find you might spend time researching or you might not even bother with.

Use it like your personal assistant, anything that would be useful to know about the location. Places to park, what are options for parking in X City at x time of day. Things you would want to know and you would spend a lot of time researching.

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ask for things

about,

what website, what phone number, what do we need to know?

You can also ask it what people say that you should have known. It can scan reviews. What were the three things people didn't like about this experience? And Des is still laughing over there, so I'm going to tell you that again.

Don't. Because don't go down the slide that's

can't go down between the escalators mo. That's not for sliding on.

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see you'll see the video. this big wooden, like, art thing. It totally

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[00:20:12] Mo: I made it over the glass barrier, so I figured I was tall enough to ride.

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you go to Instagram, you

go to TikTok, you look for the restaurants or whatever. So I just told Perplexity it's a TikTok trend expert. That based on what videos are trending and being watched a lot and commented on what 25 restaurants should we try in the US . It asked me to select, fine dining, casual fast food.

So I selected fine dining because that's fun. And they have inspired by TikTok restaurants and also anticipated openings that are coming up. I've got a list of 25 and they look pretty good. I'm ready. Mo the Marigold Club in Houston is a lavish supper club serving continental cuisine.

That's coming,

I'm going to tell you when it's coming. Marigold, I'm looking at it,

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[00:21:06] Nasreen: so let me look. I'm looking at it right now. It's from Goodnight Hospitality crew. And it is, it does not say,

but it's coming.

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[00:21:22] Des: And now Des and

Nas and Ciaran are flying in so we can have

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don't know

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absolutely. You're welcome to stay.

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[00:21:39] Des: Those are good actually. Yes. That's good. Actually, my daughter has loved that. It's, when it's dried out, it's not all slimy.

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[00:21:49] Des: Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking like, no, no.

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[00:21:56] Ciaran: thank you.

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[00:21:59] Ciaran: Seaweed. Is

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Yeah.It's Going to That's like a, It's going be salty. a seaweed is a plant. Algae is like a

Yeah. I think of it as slimy green, seaweed.

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[00:22:41] Nasreen: Okay, I'm looking up.

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[00:22:52] Nasreen: I'm looking for restaurants that you can go out to on what? Friday, Saturday night. Because I have to use AI for this. Okay. Saturday night.

So I asked, it asked me for a type of food. I picked Asian because it seemed like a good option. And then I said, do any of these have a great bar scene?

I don't know that these were the best options because it's saying based on you.

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[00:23:12] Mo: and bar scene go, but, fusion.

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[00:23:21] Mo: This is a group effort. I hope all my friends appreciate the amount of effort that's gone into Saturday night. We're either going to Melissa's 40th locally,

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[00:23:44] Des: Have you been to Moxie's? Moxie's? Looks pretty cool.

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[00:23:56] Ciaran: Yeah, see this is the problem.

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[00:24:08] Des: Have you done Joey Uptown? That's another one. We've covered, AI is good for travel, for things that have been around for a bit, at least six months. Less good for what's happening this weekend. But if you want to go see anything in Barcelona if you've got three days, five days, or just one day, it's going to give you the must dos, but as far as what to do this weekend, it's not hipt. How's that?

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[00:24:58] Nasreen: Let's start you off with a list. I found a speakeasy. Yep. You can ask what not to do.

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It's like these four guys. And in the middle, it's this little room, it has maybe 16 tables. It has a rum fountain. Like you just take your glass up and fill it with rum and you like salsa dance and oh, it's

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[00:25:38] Nasreen: That’s either fantastic or horrible. There's no in between there.

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[00:25:45] Mo: Well, for this crowd, that sounds rather

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[00:25:49] Mo: Who?

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[00:25:53] Ciaran: You know what I'm along for the ride.

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[00:26:04] Mo: Oh, Des sent it to me.

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[00:26:07] Des: Yes. A-T-M-O-S-F-Y.

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[00:26:16] Nasreen: I don't know. I did find my favorite sushi spot on TikTok. I will say that. The algorithm presented it to me. It's called Sushi Sang Lee. It's in Gloucester. It has eight seats. It is omakase. And you go in and it's amazing.

The guy has worked in New York and all these other places. They tell you all about it. Everything is delicious. And my husband and I go there for special occasions now.

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[00:27:03] Nasreen: Yeah.

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[00:27:08] Des: Yeah, and they're

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[00:27:20] Nasreen: That's same here. Yep.

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[00:27:27] Ciaran: 55 also

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[00:27:33] Des: July

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[00:27:37] Des: We'll meet you somewhere. I'm an island girl, preferably, if you want to set it up for, a really cool island.

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[00:27:47] Des: All right.

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[00:27:57] Des: That I could do too. Yeah.

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[00:28:05] Nasreen: Oh, we should use AI and ask it things like, Hey, plan a lit birthday party for my friend's 55th.

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[00:28:14] Mo: Okay, I think we're going to have to do some AI challenges. It might be a weekly thing, okay? So everybody's got to find something on AI.

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He can go back in and edit it and drop in the video. But it terrifies me as someone who makes her living off writing scripts and producing videos. I told him, I'm not okay with it. It feels like theft.

And he pretty much said it is your replacement get used to it. He's not wrong. We need to figure out how to use it to our advantage or we will be replaced.

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[00:29:27] Mo: For our kids, it's a big, big deal. All of my kids yesterday were doing homework together. Four of them, in three different states. My 15 year old well she needed to find some topics. She's like, just ask chat GPT.

And he’s like, Oh no, I got busted on that once. And she's like, don't get it to write it for you. But like you said, they're idea generators. They should be learning how to manage this. It's part of our everyday life now. Look at us here. You have to figure out how to embrace it and use it so that it is functional and helpful,

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We're just speeding up the process with AI. The final product shouldn't be what AI delivers because that's never going to be as good.

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[00:30:45] Nasreen: I like plethora. That was always a good word.

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[00:30:52] Mo: You can ask it to change the tone, right? Make it a little more casual.

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So for me with AI generating a list I may not agree with it. I may argue with it. It's going to give me better points for what I'm doing because I'm using it as a framework to just get my brain warmed up. But the biggest thing, and one of the things that came up, again, this my B2B moment for conferences, is one of the questions that was asked on stage at a conference. How do you look at applicants who have a good knowledge of AI? Or how you ask them about AI in an interview?

Is it good? Is it bad? Do you ask if they use AI? And it was a negative moment. Afterwards, I'm putting my hand up. Look, do you know what it tells me if someone can use AI productively? They know how to ask good questions and anyone who can ask good questions and get the answers that they want is someone who can be proactive and look up answers and ask the right questions to other teams and be ahead of things going wrong, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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And there's no avoiding it. I think the more we embrace it and stop trying to fight it, the better it's going to come out for us. If we're trying to game the system and avoid it, then we are going to end up with the terminator.

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[00:32:34] Mo: Well, all four of us are like early adopters of everything, right? There's a reason why the four of us know each other is because we were like in the OG blogging world.

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[00:32:51] Nasreen: I love TikTok. I love it, but,

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[00:32:54] Mo: And I have a whole plan.

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[00:32:58] Des: Y'all get me on board please, because I need to embrace it. I love watching it. I actually was forbidden by my daughter from posting anything on TikTok to begin with. She's, “Please leave me one social.”

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[00:33:29] Des: We did that in eighth grade.

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[00:33:38] Des: Yeah.

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[00:33:51] Des: I'm on it. Am I not your friend yet?

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[00:33:55] Mo: And, I did some fun things. I do have one baby viral video, the MILF muffins.

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[00:34:03] Des: This is Mo. This is Mo out on Friday nights, rocking her cast doing the slide,

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[00:34:22] Ciaran: But we just want to be as cool as you and your friends.

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[00:34:34] Nasreen: I’m really upset that we didn't overlap in Texas more. I feel like this would've been fun.

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[00:34:46] Mo: I'm kind of worried after these videos

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[00:35:00] Nasreen: We're in different TikTok groups. Like my top videos are toddler meals and dogs.

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[00:35:07] Ciaran: I'm on Author Talk, so mine is my author name. It's Cierra Bloom Author.

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[00:35:18] Mo: Oh, that beats mine. I'm going to

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[00:35:28] Nasreen: I'm sorry….

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[00:35:41] Nasreen: That’s a disgusting name.

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[00:35:44] Mo: Why don't they just call it a turtle cooler?

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[00:35:49] Des: I'm just going to say for the record, if you ever want to see a turtle hatching, I am the queen of seeing them. I know exactly what they look like when they're just getting ready to come out. The sand sort of caves in and

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[00:36:03] Mo: I have plenty left.

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Sent out an email to everybody talking about how we 69 our friends, and it was about if you share it, they get $69 off and you get $69.

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[00:36:28] Ciaran: And everybody gets off. Somebody knew exactly what they were doing.

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[00:36:41] Des: They knew exactly what they were doing. That's, yeah.

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explicit.

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[00:36:50] Des: Okay.

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[00:37:13] Mo: I am the fun one.

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[00:37:18] Mo: I cannot guarantee what will happen, but it will never be boring.

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[00:37:26] Mo: We’ve got the double birthday this year.

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[00:37:32] Nasreen: We’ve got to figure out how many people? Where are we gathering that we can get the most critical mass of people with a good area that isn't ridiculous.

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started planning this.

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[00:37:43] Des: Absolutely. That would be our style.

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[00:37:47] Des: A cocktail hour thing. We're working on our destination but we're doing a four day jaunt.

But y'all know Keryn Means?

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[00:37:57] Des: She is.

She likes cocktails like I do.

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[00:38:24] Des: The new Layla one is super cool

too.

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[00:38:32] Des: Safe travels.

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[00:38:35] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.