Planners and AI

AI in It’s Dinnertime: Planners and Assistants

There are two ways AI helps with dinner. A planner plans your week inside the app. A connected assistant lets ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini work with your recipes, your week and your grocery list from its own app.

Pro is free during the beta, and that includes Claude planning and connecting an assistant.

Part 1

Planners

Who plans your week. The free ones stay on your phone or in Apple’s private cloud. With Pro, Claude plans it with nothing to set up.

Which One Should I Use?

  1. Want it private and free?Use Apple’s planner. It runs on your phone, or in Apple’s private cloud for a bigger week.
  2. Want nothing to set up?Use Claude, which comes with Pro. Pick it in Choose how to plan and it plans the week.
  3. Have an API key from Anthropic, OpenAI or Google?Paste it in Settings and plan with it. It’s a developer key from the company’s API site, not your Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini sign-in, and the company bills API use separately from any subscription. Free in It’s Dinnertime.

Where Your Week Goes

The same list is in the app, in Settings under AI and Privacy.

On Your iPhone

Free

Apple’s planner, running on the phone. It is the fastest, and it works with no signal.

  1. Your phone
Where your week goes
Nowhere. It never leaves the phone.
What we keep
Nothing.
In It’s Dinnertime
Free. Needs an iPhone with Apple Intelligence.

Apple Intelligence and privacy

Apple’s Private Cloud

Free

The same Apple planner, using Apple’s own servers when the week is bigger. It is more powerful, and just as private.

  1. Your phone
  2. Apple’s servers
Where your week goes
To Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, which is built so that nobody, Apple included, can read the request.
What we keep
Nothing.
In It’s Dinnertime
Free.

How Private Cloud Compute works Apple Intelligence and privacy

Claude, Included With Pro

Pro, free during the beta

Claude plans the week and writes recipes, with nothing to set up and no account to connect. Up to 30 week plans a month.

  1. Your phone
  2. Our server
  3. Anthropic
Where your week goes
Through our server to Anthropic, the company that makes Claude. Anthropic doesn’t train on it and deletes it within 30 days.
What we keep
Only a count of how many plans, rescues, questions, dinner ideas, photos, adaptations and tidies you’ve used this month. Nothing about what was in them.
In It’s Dinnertime
Pro. Free for every beta tester.

Anthropic: training on your data Anthropic: how long it keeps data

Choose How to Plan with the planner menu open: This phone is ticked, and Claude, included with Pro, shows how many plans are left this month.
Pick Claude in Choose how to plan.

Your Own API Key

Free

Have an API key from Anthropic, OpenAI or Google? Paste it in Settings and plan with it. It’s a developer key from the company’s API site, not your Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini sign-in, and the company bills API use separately from any subscription.

  1. Your phone
  2. That company
Where your week goes
Straight from your phone to that company, under that company’s API terms. It never passes through our server.
What we keep
Nothing. Your key stays in this phone’s Keychain.
In It’s Dinnertime
Free.

On Google’s free tier, Google may use what you send to improve its products, and people may read it. A key billed to a paid Google account is covered by different terms.

Anthropic: training on your data OpenAI: data controls Google: Gemini terms

Also With Claude in Pro

Claude also helps in six more places, with the same rules: only the recipe, photo or list you are working on goes through our server to Anthropic.

Rescue a recipe that failed to import.

When Apple’s reader can’t find a recipe in a post, Claude reads it again.

See it in the app
A saved Chicken Tacos recipe from an Instagram reel with 8 ingredients and 6 steps, marked Read by Claude, with Save and Edit first buttons.

Ask while you cook.

Ask about a step by voice or by typing, and hear a short answer.

See it in the app
The cook screen on the Baked Ziti step about heating the olive oil. A question, Can I use butter instead of olive oil, is answered under the step: Yes, use the same amount. Keep the heat at medium so the butter doesn't brown before the onion softens. The answer is labeled Claude, with an Okay button and an Ask about this step row below.

Import a photo or a handwritten card.

Snap a cookbook page or a family recipe card and Claude reads it.

See it in the app
Read This Page showing Nana’s Gravy read from a photo of a recipe card. A line says 2 lines need a look, and two ingredients, 1/2 c flour and 1 tsp sage, carry a Check this button beside the original text.

What can I make tonight?

Say what you have and get three dinners that fit your household’s diet and allergies.

See it in the app
What Can I Make Tonight with chicken, rice and spinach typed in. Three dinner ideas follow: Lemon Chicken and Rice, which needs nothing more, Spinach Rice Bowls, missing feta, and One-Pan Chicken and Greens, missing lemon. They are marked Ideas from Claude.

Adapt a recipe.

Make it dairy-free or kid-friendly. You see what changed, and your original stays.

See it in the app
Make It Dairy-Free for Baked Ziti: 3 changes, 6 left as is, and your original is kept. The mozzarella and ricotta lines are struck through and replaced by dairy-free versions.

Tidy the grocery list.

Combines near-duplicates, like 2 onions and half a cup of diced onion.

See it in the app
Tidy This List with three suggested combines: onions, garlic and chicken thighs each become a single line, with an Accept button for each and Accept all combines at the top. A line says Suggested by Claude and to check the amounts before you shop.

The links go to each company’s own pages, which we don’t control. Anthropic’s page explains the narrow exceptions to its 30 days, for law and safety.

Part 2

Connected AI Assistants

Connect the assistant you already talk to, and it can work with your recipes, your week and your grocery list. Ask it what to make, have it fill in the nights, or tell it what to add to the list. You approve every connection on your phone.

Connecting an assistant is part of Pro, and Pro is free during the beta.

What an Assistant Can Do

An assistant sees only what you agreed to share when you connected it.

It Can Read

  • Your saved recipes, with ingredients and steps
  • This week’s and next week’s dinners
  • The open items on your grocery list

It Can Change, With Your OK

  • Add, change or remove a saved recipe
  • Plan a night, or clear one
  • Add items to your list, check them off or rename them

Things You Might Ask

What can I make this week from the recipes I saved?

Plan three easy dinners for next week.

Add eggs, rice and spinach to my list.

Changes are not instant. The assistant asks, and your phone makes the change the next time it syncs, usually within a few minutes. Until then the assistant sees it marked as waiting. What an assistant reads can be minutes or hours old.

Your phone wins. If you changed the same night yourself first, your change stays and the assistant is told why.

You can undo it. Every change shows in the app under Settings, Connect AI Assistants, Recent Changes, with an Undo button for 30 days. A removed recipe is kept on your phone for 30 days, and a removed list item is only checked off.

How to Connect

It takes about a minute, and you stay in charge on your phone.

  1. Start in the app. Open Settings, tap Connect AI Assistants, pick an assistant and tap Connect. Read what it will share, then tap Allow.
  2. Add it in the assistant. Add It’s Dinnertime there as a custom connector, as shown below for each one.
  3. Approve it on your phone. The assistant shows a button that opens the app, or an 8-character code. Use the button, or type the code in the app, then tap Approve.

Which Assistants Work

ChatGPT, From OpenAI

Pro, free during the beta

Plan your week, build your list and save recipes by asking ChatGPT.

How to add it
On chatgpt.com, open Settings, then Plugins, and add It’s Dinnertime with the address https://mcp.itsdinnertimeapp.com. Adding it by address needs a paid plan with developer mode on. On the free plan, it appears under Browse directory once we are listed.
Then
Approve it in the app, with the button or the code it shows.
Who sees your questions
OpenAI, under its privacy policy.

Claude, From Anthropic

Pro, free during the beta

Ask Claude about your recipes and week, and let it add to your list.

How to add it
On claude.ai or the Claude desktop app, open Customize, then Connectors, then Add, then Add custom connector. Name it It’s Dinnertime and paste the address https://mcp.itsdinnertimeapp.com. This works on Claude’s free plan, which allows one custom connector, and on paid plans.
Then
Approve it in the app, with the button or the code it shows.
Who sees your questions
Anthropic, under its privacy policy.

Gemini, From Google

Pro, free during the beta

Works with Gemini on a Google AI Ultra plan in the US.

How to add it
On the Gemini website, add It’s Dinnertime as a connected app. This needs Google AI Ultra in the US.
Good to know
Needs a personal Google Account and English. Gemini asks you before every change.
Who sees your questions
Google, under its privacy policy.

Claude also plans your week inside the app with Pro, with nothing to connect. That is covered under Planners above. Here the assistant stays in its own app and reads your recipes from a copy we hold for it.

Pro and the Beta

Connecting an assistant is part of Pro. During the beta, Pro is free.

If Pro ends, your assistants keep working for 3 days to cover a renewal that has not reached us yet. Then they pause, and our copy is deleted 30 days after Pro ends. Renew before then and they pick up where they left off.

What We Keep on Our Server

So an assistant can answer while your phone is asleep, a separate server keeps an encrypted copy and a short queue. It is a copy. Your phone, iCloud and Reminders stay the real thing.

  • An encrypted copy of what you shared. Your saved recipes, this week and next week, and the open items of your one grocery list, uploaded by your phone.
  • Your phone’s push token and your Pro end date. The token is encrypted. It lets us nudge your phone when a change is waiting.
  • One connection for each assistant. Its sign-in tokens, kept only as one-way hashes, and two numbers counting today’s calls and today’s changes, overwritten each day.
  • The assistant’s requests. The adds, changes and removals it asks for, encrypted, waiting for your phone to apply them.

How it is protected. Your copy is sealed under a key of its own, and deleting your copy destroys that key. This is encryption at rest, not end to end: our server opens your copy at the moment it answers your assistant, and not otherwise.

When It Is Deleted

  • When you disconnect. At once. If you disconnect your last assistant, the whole copy goes.
  • When you tap Delete my data. At once, with every connection.
  • When Pro ends. Assistants keep working for 3 days, then pause. The copy is deleted 30 days after Pro ends.
  • When your phone stops uploading. After 60 days with no upload, for a lost phone or a deleted app. Deleting the app sends us nothing, so this is how that case ends.
  • After a request is applied. Within 72 hours. A request your phone never applies expires after 14 days and is then deleted.
  • If you never approve a connection. After 10 minutes.

What We Never Keep

  • Your calendar
  • Photos and drawings
  • Ratings and cook’s notes
  • What you have cooked, and when
  • Allergens and diets
  • The names of the people in your household
  • Prices and stores
  • Any analytics

If your week is shared with your household, the dinners on it are included, and never who is in the household. Nothing an assistant sends or receives is logged.

Who Else Sees What You Ask

OpenAI makes ChatGPT, Anthropic makes Claude and Google makes Gemini. They run the assistants, not us. They see what you ask and what we hand back, and their own privacy policies apply to it. We cannot see your conversations, and we cannot delete anything from their systems. Read their policies before you connect.

OpenAI privacy policyAnthropic privacy policyGoogle privacy policyOur privacy policy on assistants

How to Disconnect

  1. Open the assistant in the app. Settings, Connect AI Assistants, then the assistant.
  2. Tap Disconnect. It can no longer see or change your recipes, week or list, and we delete our copy now. The app keeps trying until our server confirms.

Want everything gone in one go? Tap Delete my data on the same screen. It disconnects every assistant and deletes our whole copy. Your recipes, week and list on your phone are not touched.

If you also remove It’s Dinnertime inside the assistant, still tap Disconnect in the app so our copy is deleted right away.

Join on TestFlightConnect an assistantRead the privacy policyRead the questions