Google Photos launches smart search feature “Ask for photos”

Google Photos is about to have a very smart new feature called “Ask Photos”. Developed based on Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) created by Google itself, this feature is expected to launch later this summer.

With “Ask Photos”, users can search through photo collections on Google Photos using natural language, instead of having to manually enter keywords like before. Thanks to its ability to understand image content and related information, AI Gemini will return the most accurate search results to users.

Previously, searching for photos in Google Photos was limited to simple keywords like people’s names, places, or topics. However, with the new “Ask Photo” feature, users can now search for photos more easily and intuitively.

Instead of typing “Eiffel Tower”, just ask “my best photo taken in US National Parks”. Artificial intelligence (AI) will automatically analyze factors such as light, sharpness, and background to choose the best photo that suits your criteria.

This feature is similar to “Photo Stacks” – automatically group similar photos and select the best one. With a huge amount of photos uploaded to Google Photos every day (more than 6 billion photos), “Ask Photos” promises to help users manage photos effectively.

Besides, “Ask Photos” also answers more complex questions, requiring AI to understand photo content similar to humans. For example, parents can ask “what theme has my child used for the last 4 birthday parties?”. AI will respond with images and videos on previously used mermaid, princess, and unicorn themes.

In addition, AI can read text in images to answer questions. You can take a photo of your license plate and passport to store and ask AI to find it again when needed. If you misjudge a photo (for example, it’s not from a party), the AI ​​will learn and improve over time, becoming more relevant to your own search.

When you want to share a photo, AI can help create a caption that summarizes the content. Currently, annotations are simple, but in the future, AI can accommodate different writing style requirements.

Google affirms its commitment to high security for user data in the Google Photos application. Accordingly, this data will not be used for advertising purposes. Furthermore, Google also pledged that no employees will directly view conversations between users and AI assistants, except in rare cases when it is necessary to handle violations or harmful behavior. In addition, personal data in Google Photos will not be used to train other Google AI products.

“Ask Photos” will first launch in English in the US before expanding to other markets. Currently, this feature only supports text searches, like asking an AI chatbot. However, in the future, it may integrate deeper with Gemini AI running on mobile devices like Android.