Google might have been late to the Generative AI party, but it is bringing some meaningful improvements to its products with Generative AI. After launching the Google Bard chatbot last year, the company is improving the Google Maps experience with Generative AI. These new AI features are currently only rolling out to Local Guides in the USA.
Google Maps gets some Generative AI features
Google has announced that it is bringing some Generative AI love to Google Maps for Android. You can find and discover new places by asking the chatbot inside the app a question in your natural language, and it will come up with matching results. Your questions can be oddly specific and can include all your requirements, and Google will come back with matching results in a matter of seconds.
All the results will come in a new layout that includes photos of that place in the carousel, its overall ratings, and what people have been saying about that place recently. Moreover, you can continue to ask questions to the app, and it will remember the contexts, so you don't need to enter your original question every time.
The company says that the experiment with Generative AI in the Local Guides feature will serve as what will come to Google Maps more broadly in the future, as Google will learn a lot of things from its initial usage.