Probably on your town's mind: how Unicorn's hunches work

Unicorn shows what people near you ask AI, but only once at least 25 different people nearby have shared the same thing. In a brand-new area that takes a while. We didn't want Near you to sit empty until then, and we didn't want to fill it with someone else's search data either. So we built hunches.

⛈️ People are racing to the Prosper Costco for batteries and bottled water before the severe thunderstorm warning hits.

Severe Thunderstorm Warning from the National Weather Service

A hunch is a playful guess, written by Unicorn, about the questions a town is likely to have right now. Every one is labelled as a guess, and every one says what it's based on, right underneath it.

What goes into a hunch

Unicorn starts from a few hundred everyday questions people really do ask, like how long eggs last, how big a turkey feeds ten, or why it's dark at 5 pm. Each one has blanks for the town, the season or the store. Then it fills those blanks from things that are true about where you are today:

• The weather. Forecasts come from MET Norway, and in the US, alerts come from the National Weather Service. A freeze warning brings out the hunches about wrapping pipes. A sunny Saturday brings out brunch.
• The calendar. Holidays, tax day, the clocks changing, the big game, back-to-school and open enrollment are all worked out from the date.
• The time. Monday mornings, Friday nights and Sunday evenings each have their own questions.
• The place. Unicorn knows which grocery stores, coffee chains and road-trip stops are local favorites in each state, which teams play nearby, and which airport you'd fly from. For each town, it also keeps a short fact sheet of its parks, landmarks, local food and the road everyone complains about.

What a hunch won't do

Hunches are meant to make you smile, so a few things are off limits. They never mention real people, politics or tragedies, and they only mention businesses in a neutral or happy way. When the weather service issues a dangerous alert, like a tornado warning, there's no joke at all. You get one plain line telling you the alert is in effect and to follow local officials.

Where your location fits in

By default, Unicorn guesses your town from your internet connection, the same way most websites know roughly where you are. If you'd like hunches about your own neighborhood, you can turn on location in Near you. Unicorn then sends your area's name and a rough location, accurate to about a mile, to pick the hunches. Neither is stored with anything that identifies you.

From hunches to real trends

Hunches are a placeholder. As people near you start sharing what they ask AI, anonymously, real trends take over: the questions, topics and brands that at least 25 different people around you asked about. It works both ways, like read receipts. You see your neighbors' trends while you share your own, and you can see exactly what would be shared before you turn it on.

Until then, enjoy the guesses. And if a hunch about your town is spot on, it was the weather service's doing, not ours.