Connecting AI travel planning with local expertise
AI can put together a travel itinerary in seconds. Knowing whether it fits the people taking the trip and the conditions they’ll encounter is a different challenge.
Founder & CEO Sudeepta Sahu arrived at that challenge independently. She had built travel tools, and she saw an opportunity to connect the convenience of AI planning with the judgment of people who know a destination firsthand.
Travelers can start with a rough idea, an itinerary from another AI tool, or flights and hotels they have already booked. Through a short conversation, TripProof gathers their goals, budget, group composition, and practical constraints. It uses that context to assess the trip’s complexity and identify where local expertise could help.
The focus is on trips with more moving parts: multiple cities or countries, families traveling together, tight budgets, accessibility needs, or fixed bookings that must fit into a workable route. A transfer that suits two adults traveling light may be a poor choice for a family managing luggage and a wheelchair.
When expert review is appropriate, TripProof helps match the traveler with a local advisor whose coverage and experience fit the request. The traveler chooses whether to proceed, and the advisor receives an organized brief with the proposed itinerary, existing bookings, constraints, and questions.
The review covers routing, pacing, budget, seasonal conditions, and relevant border or entry requirements, with attention to accessibility and safety concerns where needed. Travelers can use that advice to book independently or, where available, work with an operator to arrange experiences and ground logistics. Those who have already booked can have their plans checked before departure.
TripProof’s model is designed to compensate partners for itinerary reviews, with additional opportunities to help arrange trips. By gathering the traveler’s requirements first, the platform aims to give experts focused requests that make good use of their time.
“There’s a lot of conversation right now about AI replacing jobs in travel, but we don’t see it as either-or,” said Sudeepta. “We think AI and local expertise are far stronger together, and Travel Tech Association is exactly the kind of place where founders, mentors, and advisors already understand why that distinction matters in travel specifically.”
Based in the Bay area, Sudeepta is building Tripproof with a trusted guide network already underway across Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Caribbean, India and Africa. Through Travel Tech’s Start-Up Membership Program, they’re hoping to build the relationships — with peers, mentors, and future guide partners—that turn TripProof from an early idea into infrastructure every AI-planned trip can rely on.