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Google Photos is about to get a big AI upgrade

Google's Ask Photos debut.
Google
Sundar Pichai stands in front of a Google logo at Google I/O 2021.
This story is part of our complete Google I/O coverage

At today’s Google I/O 2024 keynote, the company announced that a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature is coming to Google Photos. “Ask Photos” is a new Google Gemini feature coming to the popular service, which now sees over 6 billion photos and videos uploaded to it daily.

With the new “Ask Photos” feature, you can soon search your photo library using a conversational approach rather than just keywords. For example, Google demonstrated that you can ask Google Photos for your license plate number or for photos of your child swimming over time by simply asking questions such as “What’s my license plate again?” or “When did my daughter learn to swim?”

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You can take this even further by asking, “Show me how (my daughter’s) swimming has progressed.” When asked this question, Google looks back at images by date and context to show you a result.

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With this new Google Gemini feature, searching in Google Photos promises to be more accessible than ever before. In doing so, reliving memories is that much easier.

The Ask Photos feature will launch on Google Photos later this summer.

Bryan M. Wolfe
Bryan M. Wolfe has over a decade of experience as a technology writer. He writes about mobile.
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