Google Photos Is Getting a Gemini Infusion to Power Its Search

September 6, 2024:

“Exploring new places, going the extra mile. He feasts with his friends, enjoys a good drink, and laughs with his family, quick as a wink. So here’s to you, Julian, a life full of fun, may your battery never die, may your data never be done. You’re a master of tech, a reviewer of renown, a poet, a joker, the life of the town!”

If you want to return to the standard search experience in Google Photos, you can tap on “Switch to classic search.” But you also don’t necessarily need to do that. I just wanted to find some pics of myself, so I started typing in my name into Ask Photos, and it quickly took me to a collection of all the photos of me in my library—no Gemini processing required. If you have named most of the people and pets that routinely crop up in your library, you won’t have to wait for Ask Photos to process the request just to see pictures of them.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu via Google Photos

That said, I asked Yael Marzan, head of product for Google Photos, if Ask Photos would eventually replace the traditional search function completely, and here’s what she said: “We believe Ask Photos is a better way to search, but we need to go slow and responsibly and scale it in a way that makes sense.”

The Ask Photos rollout is much more limited. It’s a Google Labs feature, indicating it’s experimental, and only select users in the US will see the experience starting today. There is a waiting list if you want to request early access. Marzan says the Photos team is leaning heavily on user feedback to improve the experience. She says because this is a generative AI technology, there is more risk, and the reason for this cautious rollout is to see how people use Ask Photos and to make sure it provides “safe, accurate, and non-offensive answers.”

It’s worth noting that the Google blog post about the new feature indicates that humans may review queries to improve Ask Photos, “but only after being disconnected from your Google Account to protect your privacy.” The results are not reviewed by humans unless you provide feedback, “or in rare cases to address abuse or harm.”

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