Google Maps adds AI features to help users explore and navigate the
world around them
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[November 01, 2024]
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Google Maps is heading down a new road steered
by artificial intelligence.
The shift announced Thursday will bring more of the revolutionary AI
technology that Google already has been baking into its dominant search
engine to the digital maps service that the internet company launched
nearly 20 years ago as part of its efforts to expand into new frontiers.
Google Maps recently surpassed 2 billion monthly users worldwide for the
first time, a milestone that illustrates how dependent people have
become on the service’s directions during their daily commutes and
excursions to new places. With the introduction of Google’s AI-powered
Gemini technology, the maps are now being set up to become entertainment
guides in addition to navigational tools.
Starting this week in the U.S. only, users will be able to converse with
Google Maps to ask for tips on things to do around specific spots in a
neighborhood or city and receive lists of restaurants, bars and other
nearby attractions that include reviews that have been compiled through
the years. The new features will also provide more detailed information
about parking options near a designated destination along with walking
directions for a user to check after departing the car.
“We are entering a new era of maps,” Miriam Daniel, general manager of
Google Maps, told reporters Wednesday during a preview of the features
presented in Palo Alto, California. “We are transforming how you
navigate and explore the world.”
Google Maps also is trying to address complaints by introducing more
detailed imagery that will make it easier to see which lane of the road
to be situated in well ahead of having to make a turn.
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One of the cars that Google uses to periodically to photograph the
millions of destinations covered in its digital maps is shown during
a pit stop at its "Street View Garage" in Palo Alto, Calif., on
Wednesday Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke)
In another AI twist, Google Maps is
going to allow outside developers to tap into the language models
underlying its Gemini technology to enable pose questions about
specific destinations, such as apartments or restaurants, and get
their queries answered within seconds. Google says this new feature,
which initially will go through a testing phase, has undergone a
fact-checking procedure that it calls “grounding.”
Google's Waze maps, which focus exclusively on real-time driving
directions, will use AI to offer a conversational way for its
roughly 180 million monthly users to announce hazards in the road
and other problems that could affect traveling times.
The decision to bring AI into a service that so many rely upon to
get from one point to the next reflects Google's growing confidence
in its ability to prevent its Gemini technology from providing false
or misleading information, also known as “hallucinations,” to users.
Google's AI has already been caught hallucinating in some of the
summaries that began rolling in May, including advice to put glue on
pizza and an assertion that the fourth U.S. president, James
Madison, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, located in a
city named after him.
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