As travel recommendations become easier to find and harder to evaluate, AI is emerging as a filtering layer between what travellers see online and what they decide is worth their time. MyIQ data suggests that avoiding disappointment is becoming a significant part of how people use these tools to plan a trip.
Travel planning increasingly happens in an environment crowded with recommendations. Social feeds can make the same restaurant or attraction appear repeatedly, while popularity offers little certainty about whether an experience will justify the time or money involved. AI gives travellers a way to interrogate those recommendations before committing to them, especially when the concern is whether a place is overrated or poor value.
A MyIQ survey of 5,934 adults across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Latin America and the European Union found that 68% use AI when planning travel specifically to avoid disappointing experiences. The finding suggests that AI is serving an increasingly evaluative role in trip planning, helping travellers reduce the number of decisions that could later feel like a mistake.
That behaviour is visible in the questions people ask. 61% said they have asked AI whether a destination or attraction was actually worth visiting before committing time or money to it. The calculation can involve whether a landmark justifies a long queue or whether a neighbourhood deserves a limited part of the itinerary.
The same screening process increasingly applies to recommendations shaped by online visibility. 54% have used AI to identify places or experiences they should avoid because they suspected they were overrated. Another 47% have asked AI whether somewhere repeatedly recommended on social media was genuinely worth visiting in person.
The pattern reflects a broader difficulty in travel planning. Online recommendation systems are highly effective at making places visible, while travellers still have to judge whether visibility reflects an experience they will value. AI can provide another layer of evaluation, giving users a way to question a recommendation before adding it to an itinerary.
For a substantial share of respondents, avoiding disappointment is an explicit preference. 42% said they would rather know in advance that a highly recommended attraction is overrated than discover it themselves after visiting. That preference gives AI a clear role in decisions where a poor choice can consume a meaningful part of a limited trip.
This use of AI also changes where uncertainty enters the planning process. Travellers can now test an attraction, restaurant or neighbourhood against their own concerns before they arrive. Recommendations that once relied heavily on popularity can be subjected to further scrutiny before a booking is made or time is set aside.
Greater screening can make an itinerary more selective, although the survey does not establish whether that produces better trips overall. What it does show is that many respondents already see value in using AI to identify experiences they may regret choosing.
The findings point to a shift in how travel recommendations are evaluated. For many respondents, AI is already a significant part of deciding which attractions deserve space in an itinerary and which should be removed before the trip begins. Its influence on travel planning may therefore be visible as much in the experiences people decide against as in the ones they ultimately choose.
About MyIQ:
MyIQ was launched in 2024 and is used by over a million individuals worldwide. It is a digital self-knowledge platform that offers more than an IQ score, with over 9 million completed tests across the various test categories: cognitive, personality, and relationships, all with personalised, actionable insights. The platform offers over 25 brain games, more than 150 intelligence puzzles, over 20 hours of expert video content, and 300+ available lessons on emotional intelligence, problem-solving, innovation, confidence-building, and decision-making. Through its IQ test, full-spectrum personality assessment, and relationship insight quiz, MyIQ delivers structured, personalized feedback that helps individuals better understand their inner world and behaviour.
MyIQ was launched in 2024 and is used by over a million individuals worldwide. It is a digital self-knowledge platform that offers more than an IQ score, with over 9 million completed tests across the various test categories: cognitive, personality, and relationships, all with personalised, actionable insights. The platform offers over 25 brain games, more than 150 intelligence puzzles, over 20 hours of expert video content, and 300+ available lessons on emotional intelligence, problem-solving, innovation, confidence-building, and decision-making. Through its IQ test, full-spectrum personality assessment, and relationship insight quiz, MyIQ delivers structured, personalized feedback that helps individuals better understand their inner world and behaviour.