Engineer Launches Genius AI Scheme To Track The Price Of His Favorite Beer
A man in Ireland has figured out a way to find the cheapest pint of Guinness using just AI programs. Matt Cortland became frustrated when he paid nearly $9 for a pint at a pub in Dublin, and decided he had to figure out a way to track prices across the country.
The first step was to find out the prices. To do that, Cortland created "Rachel" using the AI voice-generation platform ElevenLabs, then had her call every pub across Ireland — with a Northern Irish accent, of course. She ended up calling over 6,000 pubs, asking each one what their price was for a pint of Guinness.
The second step was to sort the data. He used Claude to create a price index called "Guinndex," which he can update himself, or bartenders can update whenever prices change. This offers Cortland — and anyone else craving a Guinness — up-to-date prices.
The key was making AI feel authentic over the phone
While it all sounds pretty methodical, the most successful part of Cortland's AI procedure was making Rachel feel human. Rachel was inspired by Rachel Duffy, the winner of the U.K. reality show "The Traitors" – but given a Northern Irish accent. Cortland reported that most pubs across Ireland couldn't even tell Rachel was an AI over the phone, which likely yielded more results.
A wide range of industries has started using AI to make phone calls. A study of car dealerships found that when AI handled customer service calls, it actually seemed more successful than average phone calls across the industry. Data from Regal found that humans actually appear to prefer talking to AI representatives more than human ones, staying on the phone longer and providing longer responses. Rachel's phone calls with pubs appeared to reflect this, with bartenders happily telling her that she could even come in and get a pint for free.
It seemed like they didn't even know she was AI — in reality, AI robots aren't having as much success in that category. People have also reported not enjoying AI-led job interviews, likely already biased since they know it's AI on the other end. Maybe let's stick to the AI pint trackers.