Besides navigating with Gemini, Google Maps is rolling out other AI-powered features, like landmark-based navigation.
Landmark-based navigation will see distance (like “turn right in 500 feet”), traffic light, and stop sign prompts joined by gas stations, restaurants, and famous buildings that are “easy to spot along your route.” Google will ignore buildings that have low-visibility from the street.
You’ll hear clear directions like “turn right after the Thai Siam Restaurant,” and see it highlighted on your map as you approach.
Behind-the-scenes, Google is using Gemini’s vision capabilities to identify landmarks seen in Street View and cross-referencing it with 250 million places in Maps.
Landmark-based navigation is rolling out now to Google Maps for Android and iOS in the US as the new default setting.
Proactive traffic alerts will send you helpful reminders about major traffic jams, unexpected road closures, and other delays even if you’re not actively navigating with Google Maps for your common routes. This is rolling out now for Android in the US.
Finally, Maps is upgrading its version of Google Lens with Gemini. Available in the search bar at the top, you can point to a location and have a conversation with Maps about it. For example, you can ask:
- What is this place and why is it popular?
- What’s the vibe inside?
- Do they take walk-ins?
Lens will leverage Gemini’s summarization capabilities and Google Maps corpus. This is rolling out gradually later this month in the US on Android and iOS.
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