Google’s latest update to Google Maps is part of the company’s ongoing work with generative AI. There is a catch, though: these new features are only being made available to a small group of “select local guides” in the United States right now.
Google has said that the comments and ideas from the chosen group of local guides will be very important in improving this feature before it is made available to more people. At this point, it’s like a closed beta.
Generative AI has now been added to the app’s Maps feature, which helps users find places that fit their specific needs and tastes. Google’s language models will look through Maps’ huge collection of places to find the right places for users who describe their search criteria in everyday language.
According to one of the examples Google gave, all you have to do is type in a word like “places with a vintage vibe in San Francisco,” and you’ll get a lot of information about businesses and places in the area. This complete set of information will include photos, scores, and reviews that people on Maps have shared.
There are categories for the results, picture carousels, and review summaries to go with them. Based on your original question, these descriptions are meant to help you understand why a certain place might interest you. One of the best things about this is that you can easily continue the chat with a follow-up question after the first one without having to go over any of the details again.
For instance, in the previous example, it would be easy to switch to a question like “How about lunch?” and get specific ideas that fit the mood you set at the beginning.
You can easily share all the suggested places you find this way with your friends by adding them to your bookmarks. You can ask almost any question, which is what could make this a very useful tool once it’s been improved and made available to more people.
On the other hand, there has yet to be any information on when this function will be open to more people.
