Meet Rachel: the AI agent that phoned 3,000 pubs to price a pint

After Ireland stopped tracking pint prices 14 years ago, one AI engineer built a voice agent to call thousands of pubs—creating a live dataset of Guinness prices across the country.

Over Paddy’s weekend 2026, a friendly Northern Irish “woman” called Rachel rang more than 3,000 pubs across all 32 counties to find out the price of a pint of Guinness. Over 1,000 gave a price.

 Only a handful seemed to realise Rachel was an AI voice agent. 

A data gap 14 years in the making

Ireland’s Central Statistics Office stopped tracking pint prices 14 years ago, leaving no comprehensive dataset since.

In response, Matt Cortland created the “Guinndex,” using AI to rapidly collect and analyse pint prices across Ireland, where costs have become increasingly inconsistent.

The result is what he claims is the most complete index of pint prices to date—an effort to bring transparency and potentially help normalise the price of a Guinness.

From pub owner to AI engineer

Matt Cortland is an American AI engineer based in London who previously lived in Ireland for several years. A former US-Ireland Alliance Scholar (George Mitchell Scholarship), he holds a Master’s degree in Creative Digital Media from TU Dublin (formerly DIT). Earlier in his career, he founded and operated a global pub and entertainment company spanning Ireland, the UK, and the US, including a chain of IoT-enabled “wizard bars” where he created working magic wands.  He has since transitioned into AI engineering and private consulting, developing his own AI projects while building AI products and tooling for companies, several of which are based in Dublin.

“I’m a former pub and bar owner, so I know what it’s like to be on the other end of customer pricing calls,” said Cortland.

“But I also know what it’s like to be on the consumer end and paying a kidney for a pint. I apologise to everyone I tortured over Paddy’s weekend. Rachel just wanted a wee drink.”

Designing a believable pub caller

Cortland named the AI agent “Rachel” and trained her to be friendly, direct, and—if questioned—transparent. She explains she’s “putting together a wee price comparison list” and confirms she is an AI if asked.

The calls were made through ElevenLabs’ conversational AI platform and Twilio for telephony, using an old Irish SIM.  The phone numbers come from the Google Maps API, publicly available numbers for each venue.  Cortland indexed over 5,200 pubs across all 32 counties using Google’s Places API. 

He explained; 

“Over Paddy’s weekend, Rachel called the 3,000+ of those that had phone numbers listed. 2,052 answered the phone, and over 1,000 gave a verified price, which I then extracted from the call transcripts using Claude AI. 

The whole thing cost about €200 to run plus a lot of my time.”

Getting the voice right proved critical, with much of the work focused on refining Rachel’s accent, tone, and personality. Cortland tested dozens of options before landing on a Northern Irish accent, inspired by Rachel Duffy from The Traitors, which he felt sounded the most natural in conversation.

“Duffy was the first female traitor to win the show, and she was just so good,” he said.

“She played an absolute blinder. That’s what I wanted — someone warm, someone you’d believe. A Northern Irish accent that makes ‘we were lookin’ to come in for a wee drink’ sound completely natural.”

The script itself went through multiple iterations. Early versions had Rachel confirming the price back—“Grand, so that’s six seventy, is that right?”—but this extended calls and gave people time to grow suspicious. “The final version keeps it simple: ask the question, say ‘thanks very much,’ hang up. The transcript captures everything,”

Cortland says the biggest challenge wasn’t technical infrastructure, but making the agent feel human—particularly in an Irish context.

“Funnily enough, for the Irish market, it was training her to have banter, which she really struggled with,” he said. “Should have made her American.”

How did the staff react? 

Few people Rachel spoke to realised they were talking to an AI agent. The calls produced dozens of memorable exchanges. When questioned, Rachel told them truthfully that she was putting together a wee price comparison list. Most people accepted that and moved on.

• At Malzard’s Pub in Kilkenny, the bartender laughed and offered to buy the round: “They’re normally 6.20, but if you can’t afford one, we’ll buy you one. We’ll look after you.”
• At Doogies in Northern Ireland, the bartender opened with: “Twenty-five pound. But if you’re coming in for a wee drink, I’ll give it to you for a fiver.”
• At McIntyre’s Bar in Donegal, the bartender launched a full interrogation: “Five eighty. What time is it? How many are coming? Where are you coming from? What part of the country are you from? Who’s this I’m speaking to?”
• At Drumlane Bar in Cavan, the person who answered was in the kitchen: “I’m in the kitchen. I don’t work in the bar at all.” He went behind the bar to check. Five sixty.
• At Beaufort Bar in Kerry, the bartender played coy: “It’s far too cheap. You’ll have to come in to find out the price.” Rachel persisted. Five sixty.
• At Buddy’s Bar in Tipperary, Rachel asked the price. The bartender asked her name. Rachel said she was just putting together a wee price comparison list. “Fuck off.” Fair.
• At The Plough in Curraglass, Cork, the bartender refused to give the price no matter how many times Rachel asked: “You’d have to call in and I’ll tell you.” Rachel said she couldn’t do that. “Ah, well done. You’ll never know, though, will you?”
• At The Linen House in Lisburn, Rachel got trapped in a Premier Inn phone system. Two AI systems talked past each other, neither able to help the other. Rachel said “Oh, dear” four times. The virtual receptionist kept apologising. Nobody got a pint price.

Pat Hayes, owner of The Arch Bar in Thurles, Tipperary, was one of the thousands of people who picked up Rachel’s call over the weekend. When he later found out he’d been chatting to an AI, he took it in good spirits.

“It was a good laugh. I had no idea it wasn’t a real person,” said Hayes. “But look, knowing the price of a pint is important. 

People want to know what they’re paying before they walk in the door. If someone’s putting together an index of every pub in the country, fair play to them. It’s good for the customer and it keeps us all honest.”

AI and the pub

Beyond the novelty of calling pubs, the project also highlights where AI is beginning to have real-world impact.

The Guinndex arrives at an interesting moment. Earlier this month, Anthropic published research showing that bartenders, cooks, and dishwashers are among the 30 percent of occupations with zero exposure to AI automation. Computer programmers, by contrast, are the most exposed at 74.5 per cent. “AI isn’t coming for the person behind the bar,” said Cortland.

 “As a former bar owner, I know this.  AI can’t (yet) pour a pint, it can’t read a room, it can’t tell when someone’s had enough. But it can call pubs on a weekend and tell you where to find a decent pint for under a fiver.

The physical work is safe. The information layer on top of it is where AI lives and where we all should be aware.”

 How much is a pint of Guinness these days, anyway?

The national average price of a pint of Guinness is €5.95. The most common price is €5.50. But where you drink matters enormously.

Dublin is the dearest county by a wide margin, averaging €6.75 a pint. The cheapest pints are in the west and midlands, with Laois at just €5.38. The gap between Dublin and the cheapest county is €1.37 per pint. The cheapest pint in the entire index is €3.00 at Glynn’s Bar in Dunmore, Galway, although he may have just been taking the mickey. The most expensive is €10 at The Auld Dubliner, Dublin, which, incredibly, seems to be accurate.

Despite the rising cost of a night out, the Guinndex unearthed 12 places across Ireland where you can still get a pint for a fiver or less, including one in Dublin.

Dublin doesn’t fare well on any measure. Of the 46 pubs in Ireland with a perfect 5.0 Google rating, not a single one is in Dublin. They’re in places like Augher (Tyrone), Kilmakilloge (Kerry), and Rathdowney (Laois).

The CSO tracked pint prices from 2001 to 2011, then stopped. In the 14 years since, the price of a stout has jumped from €3.93 to €5.95 (+48 per cent). The Guinndex fills the gap.

Not a stunt, but a dataset: the mission to map — and lower — the price of a pint

Cortland asserts that Guinndex is definitely a data project rather than an effort to test the vulnerability of humans in identifying AI:

“I want to see if we can collectively drive down the cost of a pint across Ireland. Rachel unearthed the first 1,000+ pint prices, but there are still over 4,000 to find.

Those will need to come from people who log the cost using the “Contribute” button at guinndex.ai, which instantly updates the index and prices on the site.”

He believes that if enough people get involved, he can map the country and stabilise the price.  “Or at the very least, unearth some really good gems and places where you can still get a pint for a fiver or less (spoiler, there are 19).”

Cortland admits he’s a “real AI and data nerd” and thought this would be both a practically useful and really fun project. 

“Honestly, the main goal of this is to help make a pint of Guinness affordable again. If enough people contribute prices, we can map the whole country and start to bring down the price to something reasonable.  

I will say that this is part of something bigger I’m working on, but that’s for another day. For now, go contribute to your local.”

Search the Guinndex and help it grow

The project is now evolving into a crowdsourced platform, encouraging people across Ireland to contribute local pint prices.  The full dataset is live at guinndex.ai. Search by county, town, or pub name to find the price of a pint near you.

The site includes an interactive map, county-by-county breakdowns, and the ability to compare prices across the country.

Anyone can hit the “Contribute” button on the site to submit the price of their last pint, flag a correction if a price is wrong, or share photos of pints and pubs for the Guinndex social media channels. Pub owners who want to update their listing can also message to make an amendment with the “Contribute” button on the site.

Cortland concludes:

” If you’re sitting there with a pint right now, tell us what you paid.”