Launching today
Ask Maps by Google
Ask Maps questions, drive with immersive navigation.
316 followers
Ask Maps questions, drive with immersive navigation.
316 followers
Google Maps gets a major Gemini-powered upgrade. Ask Maps lets you ask complex, real-world questions about places and get personalized answers. Immersive Navigation adds vivid 3D routes with lanes, landmarks, and smarter guidance for a more intuitive driving experience. Rollout live in US and India.
Google Maps is reimagining navigation with Gemini.
The new Ask Maps feature lets you ask real-world questions conversationally and get personalized recommendations powered by data from over 300M places and insights from 500M+ contributors.
Instead of searching multiple tabs, you can simply ask things like where to charge your phone, find a tennis court at night, or plan stops on a road trip. Maps then shows options on a customized map and lets you take action by booking, saving, or navigating.
Google is also introducing Immersive Navigation, the biggest navigation update in over a decade. It adds vivid 3D route views, highlights lanes, traffic lights, and crosswalks, and gives more natural voice guidance to help drivers prepare for turns, merges, and exits.
The result is a more intuitive way to explore places and navigate routes with real-world context and smarter guidance.
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@rohanrecommends As a new father, I've been thinking about where to find changing tables if i'm out and about with my family. Will this new feature be able to locate such information for parents in need?
This feels like the natural evolution of maps.
Is the AI answering queries using real-time map data or more like a conversational layer on top of existing search?
Super curious how navigation + AI interaction will blend here.
Snippets AI
The shift from keyword-based place search to conversational queries like "where can I charge my phone nearby" changes how people interact with maps entirely — it's less about finding a pin and more about solving a real-world problem in context. How does Ask Maps handle ambiguous or subjective questions like "best quiet café for working" — is it pulling from reviews sentiment, visit frequency, or something else?
As someone who's driven 2,000+ miles with Maps navigating, I'm curious how the LLM handles the ambiguity when someone asks "find me a coffee shop" while you're actively navigating—does it prioritize upcoming exits or reroute you somewhere better? The demo video's voice recognition seemed suspiciously good at parsing "somewhere quiet with good espresso near my route" without follow-up questions.
Tome
Its not clear to me how you can opt in to this functionality and use it?
minimalist phone: creating folders
Has seen this comparison (Google vs Apple 2021). Dunno, Apple still feels a bit user friendlier: https://x.com/techdroider/status/2032146599783383196?s=20