Tired of fake, AI travel posts? This platform for explorers can verify
Explurger founder Jitin Bhatia says the platform's Nebu AI and auto travel log are built to make travel sharing more authentic and discovery-led
 "Tired of fake, AI travel posts? This platform for explorers can verify")
Love documenting your trips and sharing them with fellow travellers? Home-grown Explurger is pitching itself as a social media platform built exclusively for explorers. Its founder said the app is trying to move travel sharing beyond filtered posts and manual check-ins, with technology that can verify whether travel posts are real, fake or AI-generated.
Positioned as a niche network much like LinkedIn or Pinterest, Explurger focuses on travellers and travel-led content. But how exactly does it work?
Like other social media platforms, users can share pictures and videos and send direct messages to followers. The app encourages people to explore the world, meet in real life, and share travel and lifestyle experiences. Every journey, check-in or post automatically builds a digital travelogue, making the platform as much about documenting travel as posting about it.
In a conversation with Business Standard on the sidelines of the recently concluded AI India Summit in New Delhi, Jitin Bhatia, founder and chief executive officer of Explurger, explained what he calls the platform’s core differentiators.
How it works
“There are three, four core differentiators,” he said.
“The first is the concept of an automatic travel log. While users share picture videos, we have our own proprietary algorithm which creates a detailed travel timeline of each user. So it keeps track of the continents, countries, cities and places my user has travelled to, and that too automatically. So you can show the world ‘been there, done that’, and it’s authentic because you can’t manually add things into it. Then, as you travel more, you add more cities and countries. You get more engagement on your content, you earn points based on that, your level goes higher, and the higher the level, you get more rewards,” said Bhatia.
Instead of relying on manual check-ins or staged posts, Explurger automatically tracks a user’s real-world journeys through its AI-led system.
Powered by AI, the platform records:
Miles travelled
Cities visited
Countries explored
AI assistant Nebu and the pin feature
The platform also integrates an AI system called Nebu.
“Then we have an AI platform integrated within Explurger. It’s called Nebu. It’s a multi-agent AI avatar where you can ask and talk in 130-plus languages, covering almost all regional and foreign languages. You can converse, ask for recommendations, places to visit, itineraries and other features like pin message, which has made us very viral on the internet,” he said.
Bhatia explains how the pin feature works
“Imagine you can create a 60-second video, pin it on a location and send it to your followers and friends. The person who receives it can see it on the map, but they can’t open it. They have to get directions, come to the same spot, find the pin using the phone, stand within a 40-metre radius, then unlock and view it,” said Bhatia.
Explurger’s growth story
“What has happened with all this is that not only do we have many crores of users, but many hundreds of top brands like GoPro, Mahindra, Royal Enfield, The Lalit hotel chain and foreign tourism boards have opened accounts on our platform and are sharing content. Within just three years, we have crossed more than 20 million users from 75-plus countries. This has happened without using a single ad outside India. About 10 per cent of our audience is now from overseas. In India we are the biggest, and we haven’t used a single ad, it’s mostly organic. So we’re growing quite fast,” he said.
Explaining the positioning of the app, Bhatia compared it with broader social platforms.
“Platforms like Instagram, Facebook or ShareChat are more horizontal, which means you can watch anything from politics to Hollywood to spiritual content; everything is there. Moreover, whatever people post is what you see, but you don’t know what is real, especially in the age of AI.
“What happens in Explurger is that it is vertical and segmented. You see more travel-related content meant for explorers and travellers. More importantly, it creates your travel log automatically. It’s authentic. Even if somebody creates a video or picture through AI, you can’t fake your travel log. Even if someone uses a VPN, they still can’t fake it. Our deep tech is strong enough to verify whether a person is actually at a place, and based on that it creates the travel log.
“Because it is genuine and not fake, it builds trust within the community. That’s how the community is becoming bigger on our platform. Users can share pictures, videos and text, they can share a vlog or a blog, or explore a place and share their experiences. More importantly, others can see that they have explored a certain place. If they like it, they can add that place to their bucket list. The next time the user is in that area, it reminds them to go there. They can actually follow the footsteps of other users, which motivates people to share more content from off-beat areas so the community can discover them,” he said.
Key numbers shared by the company include:
> Over 20 million users actively exploring and sharing their journeys
> Presence in 75 countries
> Hundreds of global brands partnering with the app
> High user engagement, with travellers spending time discovering trips, itineraries and travel stories