Launch HN: Voygr (YC W26) – A better maps API for agents and AI apps

by ymarkov 60 comments 81 points
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60 comments

[−] sbinnee 61d ago
I also have been brewing a similar idea only in my head. But mine is for the local Korean market. Google maps is simply not reliable. Korean people rely on Naver map or Kakao map, who do not even provide APIs. Users are locked up with these local services. They may launch their own mediocre AIs to help the search, who knows in a few years. But then it's going to be too late. I think they should just open up APIs and let developers explore.

What is worse is a huge number of tourists should also use these local services whose translation is not in place. Soon enough, people will ask their AI assistants which restaurants to try out when they plan a visit to Korea. I can see that there is huge opportunity here. Kudos to Voygr team. Fingers crossed.

[−] bravura 61d ago
Bog-standard LLM mapping is terrible and I recently added Google Maps to my personal agent to remediate this.

I'd love to try Voygr for fun. Is there a skill defined that I could just swap in Voygr

[−] amir_karbasi 61d ago
Really cool! We're currently using map and web searches in our agent to gather this info for our tool. Does it support an approximate address? For example, if a plaza can have multiple street numbers, do I need to make a request for each possible address or would it find a certain business with an approximate address?
[−] gnerd00 61d ago
I think you should market specifically to people and orgs that already have registered identity and location tracking of their movements, purchases and personal actions while on duty. Then you can practice your ambitious tech, but also not pull innocent people into more detailed tracking and analytics. Many occupations and orgs have already made this bargain, so stick with them instead of trying to get naive people to have their detailed movements and actions tracked. Also probably large parts of East Asia are doing this.
[−] maelito 61d ago
I'm not sure I understand : how can you product help for opening times or pictures of my local boulangerie ? What kind of data sources will help you automate the reviewing of its attributes ?
[−] deepdarkforest 61d ago
Its quite funny that you are building an "infinite place profile", you both worked on products used by 100s of millions of people, and yet your website is down from 45 minutes of HN traffic!

Joking, but its a very good idea. Synchronization between the physical world information and digital has been a very hard problem for decades and im sure an agentic approach can 10x the value.

[−] jwelten 61d ago
Interesting approach. The annual churn stat seems brutal, I imagine that gets worse in certain categories (restaurants, pop-ups, seasonal businesses).

How do you handle conflicting signals? E.g., a business shows as open on Google, closed on Yelp, and the website returns a 404. Is there a confidence score in the API response or is it binary (exists/doesn't)

[−] il 61d ago
I like the agent-first signup via API. Is this meant to be distributed as an agent skill?
[−] tty456 61d ago

> Their API can't tell you the chef left last month

Your API can do that? Using what data?

[−] TurdF3rguson 61d ago
I'm a little underwhelmed by the api, it tells me if the business exists and is open, which is a tiny subset of what google places can tell me.
[−] frankdenbow 61d ago
Implementing maps into our app so giving this a shot. How does pricing compare to google maps api?
[−] Toby11 61d ago
what does “exist” mean in this case.. what is factored to determine a place exist? the building is there? people are speaking about it on social media? they have ad on google that point to the local address etc?
[−] xtiansimon 60d ago
Well, there goes my favorite secret mountain trout fishing spot. Sheesh
[−] acombandrew 61d ago
This is a great idea, albeit one that will be really hard to pull off well but really valuable for developers if you're able to execute.

Definitely kind of a boil-the-ocean high-schlep startup but I would love to see this succeed.

[−] macrolet 61d ago
Who are your customers? Consumer or business?
[−] mercurialsolo 61d ago
This whole post sounds - LLM generated
[−] thesiti92 61d ago
what kinds of data quality evals do you guys use now? i'm curious to try integrating it
[−] teepo 61d ago
Why not go with V'ger? Seems like a missed opportunity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_characters_(...
[−] k___c 61d ago
Gemini now has grounding in Maps data. How will you differentiate?
[−] agent5ravi 61d ago
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[−] olegbk 55d ago
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[−] takahitoyoneda 61d ago
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