Main Page
Chat Dashboard and Activities to add to itinerary
Visa confirmation and personal share cost

Inspiration

Making plans with our friends can get really unorganized. People can't agree on a place, a date, or how much money they have to spend. We wanted to make this process easier so that the plans can actually happen.

What it does

PICA is a multi-channel AI travel agent that eliminates the friction of group coordination and shared expenses by meeting users where they already are, inside their existing group chats and phone calls. Instead of forcing friends to download a new app, users can interact with PICA via standard SMS, iMessage, or direct voice calls. As members text or call the agent with ideas, a centralized web dashboard instantly updates with handpicked recommendations, dynamic location imagery, and a live activity feed. PICA provides budget tracking by monitoring individual spending caps in , calculating the cost per person, and warning the group if an item pushes someone over budget. Furthermore, PICA acts as a trusted financial proxy through autonomous Visa commerce. Using simulated Visa Transaction Controls, users assign PICA rule-based spending authority, allowing it to autonomously purchase low-cost items while triggering a mandatory approval hold for expensive purchases like a hotel room, ensuring no one is ever charged without consent.

How we built it

We built PICA’s frontend using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. To make the dashboard feel alive, we connected the Unsplash API to fetch background images based on where the group is going. Our communication is powered by Photon 2.0, which catches real-time SMS texts and voice calls and feeds them directly to our AI backend. Because live payment APIs were restricted, we implemented a simulation of Visa Transaction Controls (VTC) and Token Service (VTS) to prove how our agent safely follows daily spending limits and approval rules. Finally, we tied it all together with continuous API polling, ensuring that the second a friend texts the group chat, PICA instantly updates the web dashboard for everyone to see.

Challenges we ran into

A challenge we ran into was the voice call from elevenlabs agent and being able to incorprate it into the website. Trying to make a seamless incorporation of the agent to being able to make changes to the iternary. Also another issue was the incorporation of LocationIQ because

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of being able to plan a group trip and having the ability to make changes and suggest ideas to other while being notified in real time. We are also proud of the chatbots price estimates as well as location recommendations.

What we learned

We learned how to incorporate multiple APIs into one place that links to both mobile and desktop devices. We also learned how to prompt AI more efficiently to deliver satisfying results.

What's next for PICA

We plan to incorporate capabilities such as giving exact plane flights and prices. We also want to actually incorporate VISA's API so we can handle real purchase transactions.