The New Google Maps Feels Like a Collaborative Trip Planner

Whether it’s plonked on the dashboard during an ambitious road trip, or refreshed between train stops on a weekend getaway, Google Maps is the pocket-sized copilot over one billion of us turn to every month for help with getting to our next destination. And starting October 31, 2024, Google is introducing five AI-powered updates to the app that could level up how you travel, with the rollout continuing across the United States in the coming weeks.

The new Maps tools are powered by Google Gemini, the company’s AI chatbot that can interpret and respond to text, as well as parse through and generate other media like images, video, and code. Gemini has been integrated into Maps since May 2024 to provide various summaries and search results. For example, a general prompt like, “date night spots” will offer up several related options located nearby with reviews and photos.

Gemini’s expanded role in Maps promises to make the physical act of travel more convenient—whether that means easily pin pointing restaurants and cafés along the way while walking through a new city, or getting personalized itinerary recommendations for a group trip. Below, we take you through the newest Google Maps features and how they can help simplify travel planning logistics in the United States.

Use Gemini for itinerary inspiration

As a part of the latest Google Maps update, you can now ask Gemini for itinerary inspiration by typing in queries like ‘best restaurants for a group dinner’ in the space where you’d typically enter an address or location. If you don’t know exactly what you want to do, you can even enter general prompts, like ‘fun things to do in the winter,’ or ‘things to do on a rainy Tuesday.’ Results populate as pins on the map with relevant grab quotes from Maps community reviews.

Summarize reviews with Gemini

Now comes the hard part: you have to sift through your various options and decide on where to go. Typically, this entails comparing and filtering through countless reviews and photos—a rabbit hole that can continue on ad infinitum. But now, Gemini will condense the hundreds of millions of reviews on Google Maps into short, easy-to-read summaries of the places in question. That way you can spend less time scrolling and more time exploring.

Explore destinations ahead of time with Immersive View

Since its debut in 2022, Immersive View has provided Maps users up-close 3D renderings of destinations in 15 select cities. Compiled from Street View images taken by plane, car, and on-foot trekkers and refined by AI, the feature casts an up-close and personal eye on cities, routes, and individual establishments.

If you are visiting New York City in the fall and know you wanted to bike through Central Park before stopping by Katz’s for a pastrami on rye, you can look in Immersive View and use the time slider to jump ahead to the future and see the weather conditions in the city for each hour of your visit, based on historical data. Once you’re prepared to brave the elements, preview the exact route you’ll take in the park ahead of time and get turn-by-turn directions with traffic updates. After working up an appetite, you can virtually step inside Katz’s and look around prior to being thrown into the chaos of the deli counter lines.