Google Maps will depend more heavily on artificial intelligence to help people figure out where they want to go and the best way to get there as part of a major redesign.
The overhaul driven by Google’s Gemini technology will introduce two AI features into a digital mapping service used by more than two billion people worldwide.
One tool called Ask Maps will expand upon conversational abilities that Google brought to the service last November, giving suggestions to users looking for things such as nearby places to charge their devices, cafes with short lines or a detailed itinerary for a road trip involving several stops and excursions.
Gemini’s recommendations will draw upon a database spanning more than 300 million places and reviews from more than 500 million contributors that have been accumulated since Google Maps’ debut more than 20 years ago.
Google executives declined to answer a question about whether the company eventually plans to sell ads to boost businesses’ chances of being displayed in Ask Maps’ recommendations.
Ask Maps initially will be available on Google Maps’ mobile app for iPhones and Android software in the United States and India, before expanding to personal computers and other countries.
In what Google executives are billing as the biggest change to the maps’ driving directions, Gemini has also created a new tool dubbed Immersive Navigation that will present a three-dimensional perspective designed to give users a better grasp of where they are at any moment in time.
The 3D renderings created by Gemini will include landmarks such as notable buildings, medians in the roads and other aspects of the terrain that drivers are seeing around them as they drive to help them get their bearings more quickly.
Google believes its AI guardrails are now strong enough to prevent the Gemini technology underlying Immersive Navigation from fabricating bogus places to go, a malfunction known within the industry as a “hallucination”.
Immersive Navigation is also supposed to help Google Maps more clearly explain the pros and cons of different driving routes to the same recommendation, as well as point to the best places to park once a user arrives at a designated destination.
The new AI-powered navigation will only be available in the US initially, on Google Maps’ mobile app for the iPhone and Android, as well as cars equipped with options to activate CarPlay and Android Auto.
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