Google Maps adds Gemini to a major feature in new test

Google looks to be adding AI to yet another popular Google product. In a new test, Gemini appears in a popular crowdsourced Google Maps feature.

As first discovered by Android Authority, Google is working on a chatbot conversation-style overhaul of the community edits feature.

Currently, users can click on "Suggest an edit" within Google Maps to submit relevant information about a location. For example, users can suggest an edit for a business and add updated store hours or correct a website URL related to the business. To do this, users navigate dropdown menus and input information into text boxes. Google then reviews the edits before pushing them live. With the crowdsourced feature, Google Maps is able to provide the most up-to-date information about locations to its users.

However, with the new Gemini-powered feature that's currently undergoing testing, "Suggest an edit" will receive a revamp that brings Gemini to the feature and provides a chatbot-type workflow. Users will be able to use natural language to share new information about locations and businesses, meaning they can provide the information as if they were having a conversation with another person. 

Gemini will even ask follow-up questions related to the crowdsourced information shared by Google Maps users. In the example provided by Android Authority, a user informs Gemini through the "Suggest an edit" feature that the opening hours for the Eiffel Tower are incorrectly listed. Gemini asks the user for the correct hours and then submits the info to Google once the user provides the chatbot with their answer.

This may not seem like a big change, but it is a significant update to a crucial feature in Google Maps. 

In recent weeks, Google has been updating various products across the company — from Google Search and now to Google Maps — in order to directly add Gemini-powered AI features. Google clearly wants to make Gemini a standard part of all of the company's services instead of a standalone product that consumers can choose to avoid.