Google Maps Will Soon Let You Talk to Gemini While Driving

Google isn't new to adding AI to its products, and that includes Google Maps. The company already has AI tools that let you ask Gemini for directions to your destination, or get more info about it, and today, it's rolling out new features to help turn the chatbot into a (to borrow a term from Microsoft) copilot.

With Gemini in Google Maps, you'll be able to ask open-ended questions and even have the AI take action for you, based on its responses. The idea is to make the app easier to work with while driving, which, yes, means you can also wake the bot with a simple "Hey Google."

Let's say you get peckish while driving. You'll be able to wake the bot with your voice, ask it for restaurants along your drive, and then have it alter your route to direct you to one of them. Or, if you have a passenger with you, they could also summon the bot with a Gemini icon in the top-right corner of the Google Maps screen.

This is a major update compared to prior AI integration in Maps, which was mostly restricted to asking questions about certain routes or destinations before you started driving.

Gemini will purportedly make Google Maps routes easier to follow

But even if you're not actively talking to the AI to help you navigate, it'll still supposedly make Maps better for you. Rather than relying on generic instructions like "turn right in 500 feet," Google says Maps will now also sometimes direct users by pointing out easy-to-spot landmarks along their route instead. That means you might get an instruction saying "turn right after the Thai Siam Restaurant," with the restaurant itself being highlighted on your Maps app as you approach.

To do this, the bot will cross-reference Google Street View photos with your route. I'll admit I'm a little skeptical that it might pick an easy-to-miss landmark—I don't trust myself to be able to spot the right restaurant while driving—but if it works, it could be more intuitive than trying to figure out how many feet are between me and my turn.

Gemini will work with other apps from within Maps

There's also integration to help you better interact with Google's other apps while in Maps, like Calendar. The company says that, while talking to the bot about your route, you could also ping it to add an event to Calendar; assuming you've already given it permission to do so, it'll automatically follow through on your request. The company's also added a Google Lens button to Maps, so once you arrive at wherever you're going, you'll be able to point your phone at landmarks or your destination and ask Gemini for more details about them without having to leave Maps.

Smarter commutes

Outside of connecting with other apps, Maps is also getting some of the same features as Waze, but with a twist. Google is adding a feature called Proactive Traffic Alerts to Maps, which sets Gemini to monitor disruptions to your most commonly traveled routes in the background. The idea is that you likely don't open Maps or Waze for your daily commute, which means you're not getting traffic alerts while you drive. Now, the AI will work for you while the app is closed, too, and will notify you on its own if it detects a crash or road closure while you're on one of your routine drives.

The catch to all of this? There are plenty of ways it could go wrong, and there's no way to test it yet. Imagine the AI hallucinates a landmark that isn't there or has closed, and you miss a needed turn. In a roundtable with journalists (h/t The Verge), Google Maps product director Amanda Moore insisted that all training is "using the actual place information in the real world" and said "there should be no hallucinations on places to stop at or things like that," but this is definitely something I'd want to try out first in a low stakes environment, rather than diving into it immediately on a cross-country road trip. (Even if a landmark is real, that doesn't automatically mean pointing it out will be useful.)

When you can try Gemini in Google Maps

Unfortunately, it'll take a little while before you can try out any of these new features. Gemini-based navigation starts rolling out "in the coming weeks" and Lens in Maps is set for "later this month." Proactive traffic alerts and landmark-based navigation start their rollouts today, but it might still be a bit until they hit your iOS and Android device.

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