Interesting to see the German Tourist Board has ‘employed’ an AI travel influencer, Emma. She even has her own profile page – “I’m Emma and I’m an AI travel influencer for the German National Tourist Board. I live in Berlin and work as a freelancer in online marketing, which gives me the flexibility to pursue my great passion – traveling.”
In her introductory video, Emma tells us she’ll be sharing stories about her travel experiences throughout Germany and invites viewers to ask questions.
A bot with a passion for travelling? That happened faster than I anticipated. Initially, Emma’s bio messed with my head. Is she a real person pretending to be a bot or a bot mimicking a human? I guess if Emma was designed in Berlin to deliver online marketing, she/it (apologies for not knowing the appropriate pronoun bots prefer) is technically ‘living and working’ there. Maybe we need to look at our AI counterparts from a different angle from now on.
Strangely, or not, Emma bot is a posh English girl. I say ‘or not’ because she could easily have been plucked from one of the numerous PRs working in the travel business who patrol the aisles and stands of the World Travel Market in London, which is possibly where the Germans got their inspiration for their AI influencer. Germany’s female Pinocchio even has her own Instagram account, EmmaTravelsGermany. Despite having only two posts (both featuring close-ups of Emma, so that’s authentic enough), Emma bot has already amassed almost 4,000 followers.
Her first post generated nearly 2000 comments, many from disgruntled human travel influencers who felt they were in danger of being made redundant by a robot. Who’d have thought that the war with machines would be sparked by human travel influencers being outraged at the idea of a bot being preferred to them when it came to travellers asking where to find the best currywurst in Berlin.
Talking about where to find the best currywurst in Berlin, Emma doesn’t know. In fact, she comes over all coy when asked, preferring to talk about currywurst in general and how it goes well with a bier. You see, Emma is never going to voice her personal opinions. She has none. Hers are fed to her by her masters. As a result, her advice can be hazy and ambiguous. There’s no chance of her saying anything contentious. Some cynics might remark that’s another accurate aspect of travel influencing the German Tourist Board got right. Neither can Emma advise on such specific things as the best day to visit Berlin’s Tiergarten, or where to find a quirky museum celebrating the work of a couple of Italian stars of spaghetti westerns. When it comes to anything other than mundane and uninspiring location information, Emma’s favourite response seems to be, ‘Unfortunately, I did not understand your question … Maybe we are talking past each other here?’
Incidentally, ChatGPT will happily answer all those questions, but only by ‘borrowing’ information from other websites, websites created by human travel writers/bloggers/influencers.
The fact is, Emma isn’t very good at her job. The only people who should feel threatened by her are those whose travel advice is on a similar level. And anyone that applies to really shouldn’t be in the job of dishing out destination advice. But she is quite a neat gimmick.
So many more of these are coming now you have sites like glambase where you can make them in literally a matter of minutes