Google has announced a host of new features and updates to the Maps app, including new Artificial Intelligence (AI) features, improvements to navigation and more.
In a blog post, the company highlighted new features and changes that are coming to Maps in the next few months. Google is making Maps search more powerful with years of experience with its search engine.
The company is combining it with AI to bring more accurate search results for users. It will also show photo results based on the images shared by other users. For instance, searching for something like "animal latte art" will show the specific cafes with images that have animal coffee art.
Now, when you search in Maps for specific things like the best place to find “animal latte art” or “pumpkin patch with my dog,” you’ll get photo-first results of what you’re looking for. These results are based on the analysis of billions of photos shared by the Google Maps community — all done with AI and advanced image recognition models.
The new feature is rolling out in France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US this week, with the company"s plan to expand to more countries over time.
Google is also expanding Lens (formerly called Search with Live View) which will help users orient themselves based on the surroundings. Lens will take advantage of augumented reality and AI to show the correct path as well as assist with navigation. Lens is expanding to more than 50 new cities including Austin, Las Vegas, Rome, São Paulo and Taipei later this week.
Google also has a lot in store for cars as the company is improving the navigation on Maps to better guide drivers. The company will soon show various colours to accurately depict buildings and help orient drivers. It is also bringing improved lane details to help drivers plan lane changes in an effiecient and safe manner, especially on highways.
In the US, Google is adding data related to HOV (High-occupancy vehicle) lanes to help better plan the route. On the other side of the pond, Google is taking help from AI to expand support for speed limit information to assist drivers in maintaining the correct speed limit. Both the features will be rolling out on Android, iOS, and for cars with Google in the coming months.
The company has a little something in store for the EV owners as well. Starting this week, EVs with Google built-in, EV drivers on Android and iOS will see information related to charging stations. This will include information related compitability, charging speeds and whether a charging station is working or not.
The update will be rolling out to iOS and Android this week wherever EV charging station information is available. Google is also making the charging information available to the developers via the Places API.
Lastly, Google has announced that it has started rolling out Immersive View for Maps to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tokyo and Venice on Android and iOS.
In case you don"t remember, Google announced the Immersive View for Routes at I/O 2023 earlier this year. The feature will allow users to preview their route before starting, helping them plan the drive.