Google Revamps Maps with New AI Features to Improve Navigation

The overhaul, driven by Google’s Gemini technology, will add two artificial intelligence features to a digital mapping service used by more than 2 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 initially be available in the US and India on Google Maps’ mobile app for iPhones and Android software, 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.

The increased reliance on AI at Google Maps comes after the company rolled out more Gemini technology to make two of its other most popular products — Gmail and the Chrome web browser — more proactive and useful for billions of users. The expansion underscores Google’s confidence in the Gemini 3 model, which the Mountain View, Calif., company launched late last year as part of an intensifying battle for AI supremacy with up-and-coming rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.