You might get this AI feature in Google Photos soon
Google Photos is reportedly getting the long-awaited Ask Photos feature in a limited rollout in the US. The artificial intelligence (AI) feature, powered by Gemini, was first unveiled at Google I/O in May. Last month, the company confirmed that the feature will be coming in early access, and according to a report, users are starting to see the feature on their devices. Specifically, this feature allows users to search for specific images in Google Photos by sending a conversational query to Gemini.
Ask Photos in Google Photos
According to a Phone Arena reportthe Ask Photos feature is now rolling out to several Android users in the US via an offering update. It appears in the bottom right corner of Google Photos and replaces the Search tab. The tech giant opened the waitlist last month to request early access to the feature, and those who joined the waitlist will now get the feature.
The Google Photos feature, available on both Android and iOS devices, allows users to ask conversation questions to locate a specific image stored in the user’s cloud storage. Users can ask detailed questions spanning several sentences or vague prompts with some basic information about the image, and the AI can retrieve the correct image. Users can also ask follow-up questions in case the AI cannot find the image on the first try.
According to Google, the AI feature also focuses on user privacy. As previously stated by the company, user data, including queries to Ask Photos, is not used for advertising. The prompts can be reviewed by humans, but that will happen after the user’s account is disconnected.
The publication also shared a screenshot of the feature’s overview page, which highlighted how the tech giant processes the data in Google Photos so that users can perform natural language searches on it. According to the company, it generates text descriptions for the images and videos, uses facial recognition, and aggregates the data with location and time stamps to add context (for example, if the user vacationed in Goa between October 1 and October 5), and estimates the relationship of other people in the gallery to the user based on their images.
