With gas prices at record highs as of late, many Americans are probably wondering where they might need to save on other things so they have enough money to fill up their tank. Of course, this depends on how much gas costs where you live and what else you might have spent that money on, but there’s a new bot that can give you estimates if you’re curious.
Matt Cortland and John Fleming, a couple living in London, have created Gas Index, a website that tracks gas prices across the U.S. It relies on a combination of location and pricing data from Google as well as AI and crowdsourcing to gather its data. Cortland and Fleming created an AI agent named Bobby that automatically calls gas stations to ask for their current prices. Site visitors can also submit photos of pumps or receipts to show how much gas currently costs in their area.
But Gas Index doesn’t just tell you how much a top-up will cost in dollars. It tells you how much gas prices in your area have increased recently and quantifies that with how much that extra money would have gotten you on other things. For example, drivers in the Northeast can see how much their next fill-up would cost in iced coffees from Dunkin’. “The goal here is just to get people to try to get better pricing for stuff,” said Cortland.
