Searching with natural language
With Ask Maps, Google Maps gets a conversational search. You can make complex, everyday requests — for example, for a quiet café with power outlets, a route with specific stops, or a restaurant at a convenient meeting point. Gemini then creates concrete suggestions. Google says the answers are based on data from Google Maps, including locations, reviews, photos and previous interactions. Ask Maps is to be understood as a mixture of search and recommendation system that can directly carry out further actions.
The new “Immersive Navigation”
The second big innovation is immersive navigation. When navigating, Google Maps will in future show a much more vivid, realistic view of the environment with 3D buildings, overpasses, terrain, greenery and transparent structures so that the actual road remains visible. In addition, Maps specifically highlights lanes, zebra crossings, traffic lights and stop signs in critical situations. Google says Gemini analyzes current street view and aerial image data to create a spatial understanding of the route. In addition, Maps should explain more intelligently why a route is recommended, including considerations such as shorter but subject to tolls versus longer but with less traffic.
Direction was already announced a few months ago
However, the Gemini direction in Maps is not entirely new. Google has already announced the first dialog-oriented functions in Maps at the end of 2025. The main improvement is that the AI search with Ask Maps is being rolled out much more broadly and at the same time Google is completely redesigning the actual turn-by-turn navigation. Google will initially launch the release in the USA and India on Android and iOS – a desktop version will follow a little later.