Google Maps is set for a significant overhaul, relying more heavily on artificial intelligence to guide its two billion users worldwide. The major redesign, unveiled on Thursday, is powered by Google's Gemini technology and introduces two new AI features to the popular digital mapping service.
A key component of this update is "Ask Maps," an advanced tool that expands upon conversational abilities introduced last November. This feature will offer personalised suggestions, such as identifying nearby device charging stations, cafes with shorter queues, or generating comprehensive multi-stop road trip itineraries.
Gemini's recommendations will draw upon a vast database of over 300 million places and reviews from more than 500 million contributors, amassed since Google Maps' inception over two decades ago. Google executives, however, refrained from answering questions regarding whether the company intends to sell advertising space to boost businesses' visibility within Ask Maps' recommendations.
Initially, "Ask Maps" will be accessible via Google Maps' mobile app for iPhone and Android users in the US and India. Its availability will subsequently extend 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 U.S. initially, on Google Maps' mobile app for the iPhone and Android, as well as cars equipped with options to activate CarPlay and Android Auto.
The increased reliance on AI in Google Maps follows the company's introduction of more Gemini technology to make two of its other most popular products — Gmail and the Chrome web browser — more proactive and helpful to their billions of users. The expansion underscores Google's confidence in the Gemini 3 model that the Mountain View, California, company released late last year as part of an intensifying battle for AI supremacy with up-and-coming rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
