Google Maps is getting a new AI-powered “Ask Maps” feature

For those of us who weren’t sure we’d heard enough about chatbots and how they can find their way into all facets of modern life, Alphabet announced on Thursday that it would be integrating Gemini into Google Maps.

Bot-seat driver

As part of its “biggest navigation upgrade in over a decade,” the new “Ask Maps” feature will allow users to ask more sophisticated questions in the Google Maps app, providing chill-sounding use cases like, “My friends are coming from Midtown East to meet me after work. Any spots with a cozy aesthetic and a table for 4 at 7 tonight?”

Anyone with a decent handle on their local area and a tight grasp of Google Maps’ “Saved Places” feature might balk at that request, but other examples like phone-charging spots that aren’t busy coffee shops, or new trip-planning capabilities, could prove genuinely useful.

However, whether Alphabet plumbing its chatbot into the Google Maps app will be enough to win over fans of its biggest rivals in the navigation game is another matter entirely.

iCan do better

With Google Maps having been seen by many as the superior option for a while, social media users have revisited the maps debate of late, pitting the Alphabet product against Apple’s version on purely aesthetic grounds. Some of the results are pretty damning. Exhibit A:

And — in what maybe feels like a slightly less fair, but equally damaging, point of comparison — exhibit B:

But whether you prefer the default map that comes with an iPhone, the one that’s built into Android devices, or some secret (probably more practical) third thing, the contest between the first two definitely seems to be getting more intense recently... at least, if social media buzz is anything to go by.

However, in terms of actual usage, Google's lead remains formidable. Search data suggests that “google maps” is still searched for far more than “apple maps” is, and App Store data shows that the iPhone version of Google Maps has 7.1 million reviews, with an average rating of 4.7, while Apple's own has just 51,000 reviews with a measly 2.4 stars.

Correction: The original version of this story included a misleading chart comparing traffic to maps.google.com versus maps.apple.com based on Similarweb data. Similarweb clarifies that only a tiny fraction of Google Maps traffic passes through maps.google.com -- most goes through google.com/maps. In other words, the bulk of web traffic related to Google Maps was not reflected in the chart, which appeared to show Apple Maps catching up with Google Maps on the web.