Pints, Petrol and Prices

About this episode

This episode explores the creation of real-time indices for pint and gas prices using AI tools.

The CSO stopped tracking the price of a pint of Guinness in Ireland in 2011. The last official figure was €3.93. Nobody picked it up again until Matt Cortland and John Fleming decided to call every pub in the country and ask. Using Google Maps for contact data, 11 Labs to clone a Northern Irish voice, Claude Code to orchestrate the whole system, and Twilio to actually make the calls, they built the Guinndex: a real-time index of pint prices across Ireland and Northern Ireland. Over 700 pubs called. Total cost: approximately €200. They didn't stop there. With fuel prices dominating headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, they applied the same methodology to US gas stations, creating the Gas Index, complete with AI agents named after King of the Hill characters and a feature that tells you whether the cheaper station is actually worth the drive. This episode is a masterclass in what's possible when you connect off-the-shelf AI tools with a problem worth solving. And a cautionary tale about the Irish goodbye. Find Matt and John at guindex.ai. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Maryrose Lyons

Guests: Matt Cortland, John Fleming

Topics covered

• pint prices
• gas prices
• AI tools
• real-time index
• Ireland
• Northern Ireland
• business innovation

Keywords

• pint of Guinness
• Guinndex
• gas index
• AI agents
• real-time pricing
• Ireland
• Northern Ireland
• fuel prices
• business innovation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Guinndex, Google Maps, 11 Labs, Claude Code, Twilio

Books & works: King of the Hill

Places: Ireland, Northern Ireland, US

More episodes of Chatting GPT

• The Web Is Being Componentised · May 12, 2026 · 24 min
• The AI Problem Isn't the Tech — It's the Adoption · April 28, 2026 · 16 min
• Sean Blanchfield: Don't Let Your AI Go Rogue · March 18, 2026 · 20 min
• Sean Blanchfield Says: Don't Get This Wrong · March 17, 2026 · 12 min
• The Death of the "Job Count" · March 3, 2026 · 21 min
• Are we in a race to the bottom? Friction can help · February 17, 2026 · 37 min