Wrinkles turns your location into an AI-narrated audio tour

Wrinkles, available on iOS and Android, uses a user’s location to automatically surface stories about the places around them, acting as an AI-powered audio tour guide that reveals hidden history and local lore without requiring people to stare at their phones. The app was founded by David Stemler, a longtime advertising executive, and Ryan Hansan, who previously founded meal-delivery service ScratchDC and shared commercial kitchen TasteLab. The two have been friends since middle school and say travel — and years of conversations about how to improve the experiences around them — shaped many of their past business ideas, Wrinkles included.

Stemler said the idea came to him while using the British Museum’s official self-guided tour app in London. “I spent the entire visit heads-down, matching numbers on the walls to lists on my phone instead of taking in my surroundings while learning about them,” he told TechCrunch in an email. At the airport afterward, he called Hansan and asked whether the phone in his pocket already knowing his location meant the places in front of him should be able to speak.

The startup has built a global foundation of 1.3 million Wrinkles, or points of interest, across 177 countries. Historians, museums, creators, and brands can add their own stories on top of that base, and users can discover them while exploring or by searching and browsing the map remotely. Users can also ask follow-up questions as they explore — for instance, where the water for the Trevi Fountain actually comes from. A social layer lets users follow friends, family, creators, and organizations, and save, share, or organize Wrinkles into custom maps and guides, including personal ones built from family photos, videos, and recordings tied to specific places.

Wrinkles has experimented with a freemium model but says it is committed to keeping the app free for users. Its revenue instead comes from the supply side: museums, tourism boards, universities, and hotels use Wrinkles to build location-based experiences without developing their own apps, while creators and businesses can build sponsored guides or add links to book tours, reserve tables, buy tickets, or visit locations, with Wrinkles taking a share of those transactions.

Why it matters

Wrinkles is betting that location-triggered AI storytelling can turn everyday movement — a commute, a walk through a hometown — into a recurring habit, rather than the once-a-year use pattern that has limited traditional travel apps.