Google Maps Will Soon Let You Communicate With Gemini While Driving.
Google is no stranger to incorporating AI into its products, including Google Maps. The company already has AI tools that allow you to ask Gemini for directions to a destination or get additional information about it, and today the company is rolling out new features that will turn the chatbot into (to borrow a term from Microsoft ) a co-pilot.
With Gemini in Google Maps, you can ask open-ended questions and even have the AI make decisions based on the answers. The idea is to make the app more user-friendly while driving, which, yes, means you can also wake the bot with a simple “Hey Google” command. Let’s say you’re hungry while driving. You can wake the bot with your voice, ask it about restaurants along the way, and it will then adjust your route to direct you to one. Or, if you have a passenger, they can also summon the bot using the Gemini icon in the upper right corner of the Google Maps screen.
This is a significant upgrade from Maps’ previous AI integration, which was largely limited to asking about specific routes or destinations before starting a trip.
Gemini will supposedly make it easier to track Google Maps routes.
But even if you don’t interact with AI to help you navigate, it’s still expected to improve your Maps experience. Instead of standard instructions like “turn right in 500 feet,” Google says Maps will now sometimes guide users by pointing out easily identifiable landmarks along the way. This means you might get the instruction “turn right after Thai Siam,” and the restaurant itself will be highlighted in the Maps app as you approach.
To do this, the bot will compare Google Street View photos with your route. I’ll admit, I’m a little skeptical that it will pick an easily missed landmark—I’m not sure I could find the right restaurant while driving—but if it works, it might be more intuitive than trying to figure out how many meters separate me from the turnoff.
Gemini will work with other Maps apps.
Integrations have also been implemented to help you better interact with other Google apps in Maps, such as Calendar. The company says that while discussing directions with the bot, you can also request it to add an event to Calendar; if you’ve already given it permission, it will automatically fulfill your request. The company has also added a Google Lens button to Maps, so when you arrive at your destination, you can point your phone at landmarks or your destination and ask Gemini for more information about them without leaving Maps.
Smarter commutes
In addition to interoperating with other apps, Maps also gains some of Waze’s features, but with a twist. Google is adding “Proactive Traffic Alerts” to Maps, which enables Gemini to monitor disruptions on your most frequently used routes in the background. The idea is that you likely don’t open Maps or Waze during your daily commute, meaning you don’t receive traffic alerts while driving. Now, the AI will work for you even when the app is closed, notifying you if it detects an accident or road closure during one of your regular trips.
What’s the catch? There are countless ways this could go wrong, and there’s no way to test them yet. Imagine the AI hallucinating a landmark that doesn’t exist or is already obscured, causing you to miss your turn. At a roundtable with journalists (link to The Verge ), Google Maps product director Amanda Moore insisted that all training “uses real information about real-world locations” and said, “There shouldn’t be any hallucinations about stop locations or anything like that.” But that’s definitely something I’d try first in a low-complexity setting, rather than diving head-on into it on a cross-country road trip. (Even if the landmark is real, that doesn’t mean its guidance will automatically be helpful.)
When can I try Gemini on Google Maps?
Unfortunately, it will be some time before you can try out all of these new features. Gemini-powered navigation will begin rolling out “in the coming weeks,” and Lens in Maps will begin rolling out “later this month.” Proactive traffic alerts and landmark-based navigation are starting to roll out today, but it may be a while before they appear on iOS and Android devices.