9 Neat AI-Driven Recommenders to Check Out

AI can now recommend movies to watch, music to listen to, food to cook, and more. Here are a bunch of AI-based recommender sites. Oh, and they're free, too.

Since I’m constantly nerding out on AI developments, I’m signed up to all sorts of newsletters about emerging tools.

And trust me, there are dozens of them popping up daily.

But many are either meant for business use or cost a bunch of money.

Uh, nailed it, Midjourney.

For my Substack, I focus on stuff that’s accessible to everyone, so I keep a separate shortlist of free, beginner-friendly AI tools.

Welp, today is the day I share a few recommendation sites powered by AI.

Whether you need a tailored exercise program or want AI to help figure out your next trip, you might find something on this list.

(Or you might not, but that’s on you, isn’t it?)

Let’s roll!

1. Exercise (PPLeGPT)

PPLeGPT is a quick way to get exercise inspiration based on your fitness level and focus area. Just type those in:

Then click “Generate your exercise” to get two suggestions:

That checks out.

2. Movies (2 sites)

When it comes to movies and TV shows, you’ve got a whole two options.

WatchNow AI

This one’s quick and easy. Simply list a bunch of shows you already like:

And get a clean list of suggestions based on that:

I’ve watched and enjoyed at least four suggestions on that list (Breaking Bad, Chernobyl, Uncut Gems, and Black Mirror, if you must know), so it seems to work as intended.

Watchthis.dev

This requires a bit more commitment and—worse—having a fucking idea of what you’re looking for. (Kinda defeating the purpose of a recommender, eh?)

Still, you can narrow down your options like so:

Then get a few suggestions like this:

I like that you get a quick look at what the show is about to help you make a decision.

3. Music (Maroofy)

Maroofy is a one-click recommender that lets you search for a song you like:

It then lists a bunch of tracks with “similar vibes” (whatever those are):

You can even listen to short snippets of the recommended songs to see if they do, indeed, have “similar vibes.”

How’s this different from Pandora or Spotify’s “Radio Station” feature?

There’s only one way to find out: Take it for a spin!

You can report your detailed scientific findings to me in the comments.

4. Food recipes (2 sites)

Another one with two different choices:

ChefGPT

This one requires an account and is only free for 5 recipes per month. You tell ChefGPT what equipment and ingredients you have:

Then it spits out a recipe with cooking instructions and other info:

I added tequila entirely as a joke, but thanks to ChefGPT I now know that tequila-based chicken salads are an actual thing, you guys.

You live. You learn.

BadCook.Club

Now you’re speaking my language!

Recipe recommendations for lazy bastards like yours truly? How can I lose?!

This site splits up the process into a few separate screens:

Until it finally gives you a recipe:

Bonus points for the visuals.

Penalty points for lack of info about required amounts, instructions that seem to be cut off, and no mention of tequila whatsoever!

Maybe you’ll have better luck with it?

6. Gifts (GiftAssistant)

GiftAssistant.io might just save you from the panicked last-minute search for anything-at-all-please-oh-God-why-did-I-not-do-this-earlier.

Just share a few details about the giftee:

Then get a few questionable suggestions:

Uh…I guess the gift card sort of checks out?

To be fair, I didn’t give the poor AI assistant much background to work with.

7. Travel (2 sites)

And then there’s travel, with two sites tackling it somewhat differently.

GetAIway

This one gives you quite a bit of flexibility in specifying the duration of the trip, budget, preferences, and so on:

What you get is a text-heavy itinerary that tries to accommodate your selections:

Impressively, it incorporated my interest in horse racing into the plan.

Less impressively, there’s no “Hestesport Centeret” in Copenhagen. I checked. (Looks like AI recommenders are prone to the same “hallucinations” as ChatGPT and other language models.)

Also, nothing for tequila salad lovers. Damn!

Trav

Trav takes a somewhat different approach. You don’t get to set the trip duration or type in your own preferences. Instead, you pick from a list of available options:

But the output you get is a lot more visual and seems to actually be grounded in real, well-reviewed places:

I’d question the relevance of recommending LEGOLAND to a tourist in Copenhagen, seeing how it’s located in an entirely different part of Denmark. (Trav does acknowledge the distance when providing travel time estimates.)

You can even specify your mode of transportation to adjust your itinerary. Though in my case, this didn’t affect the recommended plan at all—Trav simply suggested I spend 2 days hiking to Legoland instead.

That’s a hard pass, Trav!

I’m sure many of these are experimental sites and work-in-progress tools, but they’re a glimpse into our AI-powered future.

You be the judge of how bright that future seems!

Over to you…

Have you come across any other AI-driven recommender tools? What do you think of them? Are they useful or just a shiny gimmick?

Let me hear your thoughts. Drop me an email or leave a comment below.

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