Regarding “County eyes AI phone tracking” by Sam Karas, December 4, 2025.
I don’t really know what Placer.ai promised you, but after about 15 minutes of research, I’m positive it’s garbage tech, complete AI snake-oil, designed to collect speculative venture capital investments, then grift money out localities and commercial real estate developers. Real GIS people, who rely on actual data and science, seem to hate it a lot.
For example, this quote from Visit Big Bend’s Robert Alvarez makes no sense: “Then it does that whole Big Brother thing,” he explained. “It finds out where they’re from, what their income is, etc.—the kind of stuff [that’s generated] when you allow apps to track you.”
First off, people rarely describe “Big Brother” style surveillance as a positive. Weird choice there. Secondly, there are countless reports of Placer.ai simply making up demographic and geographic data. Of course, this is to be expected from any company that describes itself as “AI.”
Third, the only way Placer.ai is able to collect any data at all is by integrating with in-app advertising, and only then, among people who didn’t know to turn off location services (as Alvarez alluded to in his quote). And, it’s not like people go to national parks with an expectation that their smart phones will remain particularly smart. Cell service is spotty and data service is nearly nonexistent, and that is, in fact, a good thing when going on a nature vacation.
At any rate, I hope you’re not burning too many of my tax dollars on this scam (why yes, I am a Brewster County tax payer!), and I urge you to do a little more research on other people’s experiences with Placer.ai. For example, you might want to check in with the Madison, Wisconsin, urban development folks, now that it’s been a couple years since they started experimenting with it:
Thanks!
Tod Beardsley
Alpine