Then I gave Spark a simple trip-planning job. \u201cI\u2019m going to be in Hershey PA with my wife, two kids, and dog the weekend of July 18th. Can you make a plan for the whole weekend, including places to stay, eat, things to do, and everything else?\u201d I left out a few salient details, like the concert tickets I have for that Saturday night, but figured I\u2019d start with the six most obvious things to do in Hershey and go from there.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Spark pinged me back. \u201cI have created a comprehensive, family-friendly, and dog-friendly weekend itinerary for your trip to Hershey, PA, from Friday, July 17 to Sunday, July 19, 2026.\u201d It shared a link to a Google Doc it had made me, and a couple thousand words of shockingly detailed, useful itinerary.<\/p>\n
The most detailed, personalized trip itinerary I\u2019ve ever gotten from an AI bot. Screenshot: David Pierce \/ The Verge<\/p>\n To begin with, it offered driving directions from my house, an address that of course Google knows but I had not offered. It included a few hotel options, including their pet fees, and some dog-friendly activities that Frida might like. I never told Google my dog\u2019s name is Frida; my only guess is that Spark found it through emails from my vet.<\/p>\n Spark also casually noted that my son Lewis will get into Hershey Park for free, because he\u2019s not a year old yet, but that because Arthur is three, he\u2019ll need a ticket. I don\u2019t know if Spark was guessing what time Lewis naps in the afternoon, or if it knew it somehow, but it was right to schedule nap time for 1:30PM.<\/p>\n The whole Spark itinerary was filled with details like this. It included my wife\u2019s name, and took into consideration the fact that she doesn\u2019t like to eat onions or scallions. It included the Thomas Rhett and Niall Horan concert on Saturday night, presumably based on the Ticketmaster confirmation in my email, and noted that parking is included in the tickets we bought. When I got to the part where it mentioned getting a babysitter that night, I remembered to note that my parents are coming along for just that purpose, so I added a note to the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a wonderful update!\u201d Spark replied, happily calling my parents by their names, and switching its recommendations from a hotel to an Airbnb. When I asked Spark to put all the information in a Google Doc and share it with Anna, it found my wife\u2019s email, attached the document, drafted a note that sounded like we were business colleagues instead of a married couple, and sent it along.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure Airbnb blocked this, not Google. Screenshot: David Pierce \/ The Verge<\/p>\n The only time Spark failed me was when I asked it to book an Airbnb. It prompted me to allow Gemini to interact with websites on my behalf, navigated to Airbnb, and appeared to be promptly blocked. \u201cDue to security and authentication policies on Airbnb, I am unable to log in, handle payment, or complete bookings directly on your behalf.\u201d It instead offered up a few relevant places with availability on the right days, and reminded me of the information I\u2019d need to book.<\/p>\n On the one hand, this is one of the most astonishingly impressive AI experiences I have ever had. Google\u2019s AI prowess, combined with the vast quantity of data it has on me through Google\u2019s Personal Intelligence feature, produced a personalized and useful itinerary that was well suited to my needs and my family. It put together the itinerary, and presented it to me, the way an actual human assistant would have \u2014 with lots of details specific to our situation, with the names of the people who matter, and with affordances made for all of our specific needs. Every time I read the itinerary I\u2019m blown away by another detail of it; I suspect we\u2019ll follow it almost exactly.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I can\u2019t shake the deeply creepy feeling I get from the whole thing. What Spark did feels sort of magical, and very invasive. It\u2019s weird that Spark is so casually telling me the names and ages of my children, reminding me that it knows where I live, and finding information I know for a fact I\u2019ve never volunteered to Google. Intellectually, I know that Google knows an incredible amount about me \u2014 add up my emails, my calendar, my photos, and my search history, and you\u2019ve pretty much got me pegged. But seeing Spark treat all that data not as something to be protected, but as something to be mined, just feels bad.<\/p>\n This is the trade we\u2019re all being asked to make right now. There is a direct correlation between how much of yourself you\u2019re willing to share with an AI system and how useful that system can be. Google is in such a strong position<\/a> precisely because it already has all that information, while OpenAI, Anthropic, and the rest are desperately trying to figure out how to accumulate it. The AI tools we\u2019re being promised are the ones that know us intimately, that can take action on our behalf, that can make decisions without even needing us around. None of that works unless we open ourselves up completely to the machine. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re being asked, even compelled, to do.<\/p>\n You know the phrase, \u201cIf you\u2019re not paying for it, you\u2019re the product\u201d? AI takes that one step further. We actually are paying for it. And we \u2014 our correspondence, our photos, our very lives \u2014 are both the raw material and the end product, everything constantly mined and sorted and fed back to us in new ways. Some of them might be incredible; all of them will require this trade. I suspect I\u2019m going to have a fabulous weekend in Hershey this summer, but I\u2019ll never shake the feeling that I\u2019m being watched. 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