Guide

An AI meal planner that checks its own work

You can already ask an AI chatbot for a week of dinners, and it will happily write one. The trouble starts when your family has rules. Chatbots forget what you told them last week, they can't be sure a recipe is free of tree nuts, and they'll invent a shopping list that doesn't add up. Ulivo is an AI meal planner built the other way around: your assistant handles the conversation, and Ulivo's planner, a separate program that stores your family's rules, chooses the dinners and checks every one.

Two jobs, two tools

Planning family dinners has two very different parts:

1. Understanding what you want. "Something quick on Tuesday." "No pasta this week." "Alex is away Wednesday." "Maya didn't like the cod." That's language, and AI assistants are good at it.
2. Getting the details right. Which recipes contain tree nuts. Whether a dinner fits in 20 minutes. How much chicken to buy for two adults and two children. That's bookkeeping, and it needs to be exact every time.

Ulivo splits those jobs. Your AI assistant (Muse, ChatGPT or Claude) talks with you and passes your requests to Ulivo. Ulivo's planner does the bookkeeping: it reads your family's profile, picks dinners from its recipes and yours, and checks each one against everyone's rules before anything reaches you. The assistant can't skip that check, and it can't talk Ulivo into a dinner that breaks an allergy.

What that means in practice

• Your rules are stored, not remembered. Allergies, foods someone never eats, diets, dislikes, portions and schedules live in your Ulivo account, not in a chat history. Start a new conversation, or switch from one assistant to another, and the rules are the same.
• Allergies are checked by ingredient. Every recipe is a list of ingredient lines matched to known ingredients and their allergens. A dinner that contains an allergen, even in an optional topping, is never planned on a night that person is eating. If an ingredient can't be identified, the dinner is treated as unsafe for allergies. Read more in allergy-friendly meal planning.
• Refusals come with a reason. Ask to swap Friday for something with almonds when someone's allergic to tree nuts, and Ulivo says so, with the reason, instead of quietly obliging.
• "No safe plan" is an answer. If the rules leave no dinner that fits a night, Ulivo says which rule is in the way rather than relaxing one.
• Every choice is explained. For each night, Ulivo can say why that dinner was chosen: it fits the time you have, it's a family favorite that's due back, or it uses up something you already have.
• The numbers add up. Portions, cooking times, the shopping list and the budget estimate are calculated, not written by the chatbot.

What you can ask

Because the assistant handles the language, you don't need special commands. Things people say to Ulivo:

Plan our dinners for next week.

Swap Thursday for something with chicken.

Alex is away Wednesday, and we only have 15 minutes that night.

We're eating out Sunday.

We already have rice and olive oil.

Looks good, confirm the plan, and give me an Instacart link.

Maya didn't like last night's dinner. Never make it again.

Guardrails we built in

AI assistants are powerful, so Ulivo is deliberately careful about what it lets them do:

• No purchases in chat. Ulivo never sells, upgrades or takes payment in a chat. Billing happens only on getulivo.com. An Instacart link only opens your list on Instacart's site; it places no order.
• Notes stay notes. Text you type into a note, like "Maya's favorite" or "double the garlic", is stored as plain text. If a note looks like an instruction, it's flagged, and nothing in it is ever acted on.
• Read-only is an option. When you connect an assistant, the sign-in screen lets you give it read-only access. It can then show your plan and list but can't change anything.
• Sensitive actions ask first. Sending an email invite to another adult is marked as sensitive, so your assistant should ask for your approval every time.
• Health information needs consent. Ulivo asks the account holder before it saves allergies or calorie targets, and uses them only to plan dinners.

What an AI meal planner shouldn't do

Ulivo plans dinners. It isn't a doctor or a dietitian, and it doesn't give medical or nutrition advice. If you're managing a health condition, a serious allergy, or a child's growth, talk to a professional, and always read food labels.

Which assistant?

Ulivo is built for Meta's Muse, launching soon. It also works with ChatGPT and Claude as a connector. See Ulivo for Muse, Ulivo in ChatGPT and Ulivo in Claude, or the short connection steps.