Google to overhaul its Maps app, add more AI features
As part of a major redesign, Google Maps will rely more on artificial intelligence to help people find where they want to go and the best way to get there.
The overhaul, driven by Google’s Gemini technology, will add two artificial intelligence features to a digital mapping service used by more than two billion people worldwide.
A tool called Ask Maps, which Google introduced last November, will expand on conversational capabilities and offer suggestions to users looking for things like nearby places to charge their devices, short-tail cafes, or a detailed itinerary for a road trip that includes several stops and sightseeing.
Gemini’s recommendations will draw from a database of more than 300 million places and reviews from more than 500 million participants, accumulated since Google Maps’ debut more than 20 years ago.
Google executives declined to answer a question about whether the company plans to eventually sell ads to increase businesses’ chances of appearing in Ask Maps recommendations.
Ask Maps will be available first in Google Maps’ mobile app for iPhones and Android in the United States and India, later expanding to PCs and other countries.
In what Google executives are billing as the biggest change to the driving directions of maps, Gemini has also created a new tool called Immersive Navigation that will give users a three-dimensional perspective designed to give users a better grasp of where they are at any given time.
The 3D images created by Gemini will include landmarks such as notable buildings, medians on roads, and other aspects of the terrain that drivers see around them while driving, helping them navigate faster.
Google believes its AI guardrails are now strong enough to prevent the Gemini technology underlying Immersive Navigation from producing fake destinations, a malfunction known in the industry as “hallucination.”
Immersive Navigation is also expected to help Google Maps explain the pros and cons of different driving routes more clearly than the same recommendation, as well as show the best places to park once the user arrives at a designated destination.
The new AI-powered navigation will initially be available only in the US on Google Maps’ iPhone and Android mobile app, as well as in vehicles equipped with options to enable CarPlay and Android Auto.
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