In a sea of AI travel-planning apps, a new startup called Boop aims to redefine the space with a fresh approach. It turns social recommendations into bookable itineraries. Instead of receiving a random AI-generated travel plan, the app gives users access to itineraries from real people who went on real trips.
When someone takes a trip, Boop uses AI to quickly turn their experience into an itinerary that others can copy and personalize. It does this mainly by analyzing location data and metadata from photos shared with the app. The idea is to build a network of shared itineraries that people can monetize, giving travel creators another way to earn money from their recommendations.
The startup was founded in February by Nancy Li Smith. She previously led AR and VR innovation at Meta and Microsoft and served as executive vice president of growth and strategy at the physical AI startup BrightAI. Smith came up with the idea for Boop after feeling there was no efficient way for her to remember or share her own travel recommendations. She also wanted to address the stress and emotional labor that often come with planning travel, especially since women make roughly eighty percent of travel decisions and often feel pressure to make every trip perfect.
Smith said that women are majority of the time the planner in relationships, families, and friend groups. She noted the pressure to make every trip amazing not only for yourself, but for your partner, family, and friends. She described years of emotional and logistical labor done for free, and stated that Boop is now solving this by capturing travel details easily without requiring extra work.
Instead of having to scour social media for recommendations, sift through hundreds of reviews, and pin ideas across maps, users can access tested and loved itineraries from creators and friends. Smith described Boop as the first AI travel companion built on social trust. She explained that the moment you start a trip and begin exploring, Boop remembers your trip in the background, tracking your stops, photos, and reservations, and turns this into a beautiful, shoppable itinerary that friends can use.
She continued that instead of planning from scratch, which can be a weeks-long process, you can now just copy your friends’ real Tokyo or Paris trip itinerary. With one tap, you can chat with AI and in minutes be able to personalize it to make it your own.
When users start capturing a trip, the app tracks their movements in the background, similar to how a fitness app tracks steps or running routes, provided the user has given permission. The company states that Boop’s AI does not use location data for anything other than capturing trips and offering recommendations. For instance, if a user has shared an interest in art and is located in a specific Paris neighborhood, Boop may direct them to a relevant museum.
In the future, Boop plans to integrate with user calendars, with permission, to access existing reservations and add them to itineraries. Smith says Boop is helpful when you are on the road, not just when planning a trip. For example, if you are standing in the middle of Tokyo late at night feeling spontaneous, Boop can recommend an activity based on your taste and your friends’ recommendations.
Boop is launching on mobile and is currently available on an invite-only basis. The company has a public waitlist that users can join. Boop is offering early access to select travel creators whose trips people already want to copy. The startup has seen interest from creators who already share their travels and are looking for a way to earn from their recommendations. Creators can share their trips with followers through a special link that includes affiliate links.
When people copy the link and book, the app automatically integrates affiliate commission APIs from the industry. It generates the industry standard of ten to twenty-five percent commissions, and turns half of that back to the creators. Smith explained that with each copy, that could mean fifty to one hundred dollars. For an influencer with a large following, this could become a five or six figure income over time.
Boop is working with hotel and experience affiliate aggregation companies and using APIs to access affiliate booking inventory from platforms such as Expedia, Booking.com, Marriott, and Viator. Smith says Boop is fortunate to be backed by leaders from TripAdvisor, Marriott, and Expedia, who understand travel and consumer behavior. Notable investors include Stephen Kaufer, co-founder and former CEO of Tripadvisor, and Stephanie Linnartz, the former president of Marriott International.
In terms of funding, Boop raised three point two million dollars in pre-seed funding in May, co-led by BBG Ventures and Lynn Capital. For the future, Boop wants to be the go-to place for booking travel, especially as research shows that Gen Z is less likely to view travel as a discretionary expense.
Smith shared the team’s vision for the next five years, stating that when someone wants to plan a trip, they will not say to check the reviews, but to copy their Boop. The goal is for every real trip to become a guide and every memory to become a new currency.