Our take on AI

littledots is made by people, for people. We like it that way, and we want to keep it that way.

But “made by people” deserves a straight answer when the subject is AI. Let’s be fully transparent about where AI does show up in littledots, where it doesn’t, and what say you get over any of it.

(Very limited) AI in the app

littledots is not an AI app. There is no chatbot waiting for you, no feed quietly tuned by a model, nothing reading over your shoulder. That is the strict app default.

We did build a small set of optional helpers. Most not related to AI in any way, but external services that you should be aware of before using. They are meant to make your life using the app easier. Hunting down a hotel’s exact address. Typing out a flight’s times by hand. Checking tomorrow’s weather. We call them Magic helpers, and two things about them matter more than anything else.

They are off by default. When you first sign in, every one of these is switched off. To use them you go to Settings and turn them on, once, on purpose. Nothing reaches out to anyone until you decide it should.

They run only when you ask. Even switched on, a helper does nothing until you tap the button that calls it. Never in the background, never silently, never “while you weren’t looking.”

Here is the full list:

• Location search. When the built-in city list doesn’t have the spot you’re after, look up a full address and drop a precise pin. (Google Maps.)
• Place lookup. Find a hotel, landmark, or restaurant by name and pull its details into a trip item with one tap. (Google Maps.)
• Paste a URL. Drop in a Google Maps share, an Apple Maps link, a Booking.com room, a what3words address, or any other link we recognize, and have the title, location, and link filled in for you. (Google Maps, what3words.)
• Flight lookup. Enter a flight number and date, and have the route and times filled into a trip item. (AeroDataBox, with aircraft and airport details from Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and OurAirports.)
• Weather forecast. Attach a multi-day forecast to a trip or an item. We refresh it every time you open it and never store the numbers, so they stay current. (MET Norway.)
• Trip map. See every located item on a real map, filtered by type or by trip day. (Google Maps.)
• Live location previews. Turn a trip item’s location tile into a real map you can pan and zoom. With the helpers off, you still get a bundled world-map preview, and no outside call is made. (Google Maps.)
• Suggest activity. This is the only piece that is AI in the strict sense. Tell it what you’re after (“a cozy dinner spot near the hotel”, “a museum and a park”), and Gemini offers a few options tied to real places, which you can drop into your itinerary or ignore. (Google Gemini.)

Leave the helpers off and the app still does everything it’s meant to. In a slightly less convenient manner.

Full disclosure: a select couple of services are always on:

• the optional “continue with Google” and “continue with Apple” buttons,
• the photo library you can pick a cover image from (Unsplash – completely optional: no need to pick an external image though, you can always upload and pick your own, or go completely without images),
• and the storage that holds the photos and files you upload (Bunny Storage + CDN).

None of those involve AI, and the app lists every external service it talks to, what it does, and when it runs, on one screen in Settings. Always up-to-date and fully transparent.

AI in how we build it

The second place AI comes up is behind the scenes, in how the app gets made.

For most of its life, littledots was written by hand, line by line. Large parts of the core still are. That craft matters to us, and it isn’t going anywhere.

In early 2026 we changed one thing about how we work. We started using AI to help with the writing of the code itself, across the app, the API, and everything in between. We want to be plain about how that works here: the machine helps draft, and a person reads, questions, and signs off on every line before it ships. Nothing lands in our app that a human didn’t choose to put there. We own what we build, full stop.

We do this because it lets a small team move carefully on a lot of surface area, without cutting the corners that would show. The bar for what ships didn’t move. If anything, having additional sets of eyes on every change raised it.

If this isn’t for you

We know feelings about AI run deep, and not everyone lands in the same place. Some of you will read this and nod. Some of you won’t, and we respect that completely.

If the idea of software built with AI assistance sits wrong with you, we’d rather tell you straight than bury it in a policy page. And if it’s a real dealbreaker, we’d honestly rather you didn’t use littledots than open it with a knot in your stomach every time. There are no hard feelings here, and there’s no argument we’re trying to win. Your comfort with the tools behind the thing is yours to decide.

For everyone staying: thank you. The app stays quiet, the helpers stay optional, and the choices stay yours. That’s the deal, and we mean to keep it.