An AI Navigator for Road Trips Has Been Developed in Russia
The Russpass travel service has launched an AI-powered road trip builder. The algorithm designs the trip itself, including stops along the way and points of interest to visit.
In early October 2026, Russpass expanded its feature set with an AI-powered tool that now creates personalized road trip itineraries across Russia. Instead of simply plotting a route between two points, it builds out an entire trip, highlighting cities and villages along the way, attractions, places to explore and stop, and useful services. The builder places recommended locations, complete with photos, on a map tailored to car travel, and users can manually adjust the resulting itinerary. The feature covers every Russian region represented on the platform.
This is the latest step in Russpass' rollout of AI tools. In March 2026, the service launched an AI trip builder: users enter a region, travel dates, who is traveling and their interests, and the algorithm suggests up to six itinerary options. The new feature brings that same approach to road trips.
The innovation marks a notable achievement for Russia's tech industry: recommendation algorithms are being put to work in a major consumer service rather than simply tested in experimental settings. For travelers, the technology can cut the time and effort spent searching for information on their own. For regions, the benefit comes from redistributing tourist traffic, since the algorithm can add intermediate cities that drivers had not originally planned to visit.
From a Catalog to a Digital Travel Companion
The biggest opportunity for the technology is to turn Russpass from a catalog of destinations and a booking system into a personal digital assistant for every stage of a trip. A logical next step would be deeper integration of AI-generated itineraries with hotels, restaurants, excursions and regional attractions. The technological foundation is already in place: as early as 2025, Russpass allowed users to book transportation and accommodations and receive personalized recommendations.
For regions, the ability to promote their own attractions is particularly important. In the developers' example, a drive from St. Petersburg to Moscow becomes a journey through Veliky Novgorod, Valday, Vyshny Volochyok and Tver, generating additional demand for hotels, restaurants and museums in smaller cities. Russpass also has the audience to scale that effect: by the end of 2025, interactions with the service had exceeded 100 million, while the platform offered more than 1,000 curated itineraries.
It is still too early to talk about the technology as an established export. Even so, the platform has potential as a model for a unified digital service that combines content, recommendations, routing and booking. Russpass was presented at the international FITUR tourism trade fair as early as 2021, with a multilingual interface.
Five Years of Evolution
In 2021, the service could only create combined itineraries, offer an interactive map of Russia, let users select attractions and sell tickets. By 2022, its audience had reached 3 million, while the platform offered more than 4,500 travel options and 25 services, including hotel booking, attraction search and ready-made tours.
In 2023, Russpass evolved into an industry ecosystem: a business portal for tourism companies was launched, while the platform offered around 30 services and more than 20,000 products. That fall, its developers announced synchronization with the national Russia.Travel portal. In 2024, the service moved from catalog search to algorithmic personalization. By 2025, Russpass brought together offerings from all 85 Russian regions, more than 1,000 curated itineraries and tens of thousands of destinations and attractions. In 2026, it moved from recommendations to generating complete trips: the AI trip builder launched in March, followed by the road trip feature in October.
A Route With Stops Along the Way
The latest stage in Russpass' evolution is a shift from a catalog and manual trip planner to personalized recommendations and generative AI-powered travel planning. Instead of a model where “the user searches for everything and assembles the trip,” the service now offers a more advanced one: “the user sets the parameters, and the algorithm proposes a complete itinerary.”
The next stage could bring even deeper personalization, taking into account how long travelers want to stop, their budget, who is traveling, seasonal factors and their interests.
