Google Rolls Out AI-Powered ‘Ask Photos’ Feature Across the United States

Google’s new AI-powered “Ask Photos” feature, which is available in early access to U.S. users, enables more advanced photo searches using natural language queries. It leverages AI to analyze content, locations, and memories in user galleries.

At its I/O developer conference in May, Google debuted its AI-powered search feature, “Ask Photos.”It will be available to users starting Thursday.

The feature will initially be available to some customers in the United States in “early access,” allowing them to ask the AI to find photos using more complex queries. After that, it will be available to all users.

Ask Photos, powered by Google’s Gemini AI model, allows users to search for their photos using natural language queries that take advantage of the AI’s knowledge of the photos’ content and other metadata.

Before the AI update, Google Photos users could look for specific people, places, or things in their photos. Now, they can ask a wider range of questions, even ones that need a deeper understanding of the photos.

Google said at I/O that you could ask for the “best photo from each of the National Parks I visited,” as an example. A lot of different signals help the AI figure out which image is the “best” in a set.

These signals include lighting, blurriness, and background distortion, among other things. In conjunction with its understanding of the photo’s location, it would then utilize this data to identify images captured in national parks.

Google said the feature would allow users to do more than get photos back. They would also be able to ask questions and get helpful answers. For example, one parent could ask Google Photos what themes they used for each of their child’s last four birthdays.

The AI could tell if the party had a theme, such as “mermaid,” “princess,” “superhero,” or something else. The AI could then inform the parent about the most recent usage of those themes.

Google’s New ‘Ask Photos’ Feature

If you like to take pictures of your food, more useful questions might help you remember a specific event, like “What did we order last time at this restaurant?”

The company also suggests asking, “Where did we camp last time?” at a certain place, like Yosemite. You could also use this feature to help you put together an album of photos or a list of everything you did on a trip.

The AI can read your photo gallery by looking at the people, hobbies, favorite foods, and other important memories. Ask Photos is still in testing, so U.S. users must search Google Labs for it. The company developed this feature based on its AI principles, and it will never use the private information in photos to target ads.

However, Google employees may look over users’ questions to help the AI improve over time. Humans won’t review the AI’s answers unless the user requests assistance, provides feedback, or reports abuse or harm.