The Google I/O 2024 event is filled with new AI features, and one incredibly useful new tool that debuted at the event will make it easier for you to search your photos and videos via Google Photos.
This new feature is called Ask Photos, and with the help of Google's updated Gemini models, it can "understand context and answer more complex questions," according to a tweet from Google. And seeing this feature in action at I/O 2024 makes me incredibly excited for it to roll out this summer — here are a few ways it'll work.
What can you do with Google's Ask Photos feature?
Right now, you can search through your files in Google Photos to find something specific, like one of your cats, a specific activity like hiking, or a book. But you often have to scroll through multiple files to find exactly what you're looking for.
With Google's new Ask Photos feature utilizing Gemini AI models, it'll be a breeze to find specific information without manually searching.
The first example Sundar Pichai uses when talking about Ask Photos at Google I/O is searching for your license plate number when you're ready to pay at a parking station. Rather than typing "license plate" into Google Photos and scrolling through multiple pictures of your car that show a visible license plate, you can use Ask Photos to comb through your photos and get the exact information you're looking for.
Pichai says, "It knows the cars that appear often, it triangulates which one is yours, and just tells you the license plate number."
Another way Ask Photos can be helpful is in creating collections of memories to look back on. While Google Photos can do this now to some extent, it's more advanced with these updated Gemini models, and it can understand more complex queries.
As an example, Pichai says you can look at early milestones by asking something like, "When did Lucia learn to swim?" Or, you can go deeper by requesting "Show me how Lucia's swimming has progressed."
Ask Photos will then filter through all possible photos that involve Lucia and swimming, including fun pool days, snorkeling at the beach, and snaps of completed swimming certificates with Lucia's name on them.
Rather than just showing you a collection of images that involve Lucia swimming, Ask Photos gives you a collection that shows Lucia swimming at a young age, certificates that show progression, and variations of her swimming hobby, like being at the beach or a water park.
Google's new Ask Photos feature won't officially roll out until this summer "with more capabilities to come," and as someone with an insane amount of photos and videos in Google Photos, I can't wait to try it out.
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