Google's AI-powered Ask Photos feature begins US rollout

First announced at Google’s I/O developer conference this May, Google Photos’ AI-powered search feature, “Ask Photos,” is rolling out to users starting Thursday. The feature, which allows users to ask the AI to find photos using more complex queries, will initially be available in “early access” to select customers in the U.S. before expanding to a wider user base.

Powered by Google’s Gemini AI model, Ask Photos lets users search their photos using natural language queries that leverage the AI’s understanding of their photo’s content and other metadata. Previously, Google Photos users could search for particular people, places or things in their photos, but the AI upgrade will allow them to ask a larger variety of questions, including those that require a deeper understanding of the photos.

For example, as Google suggested during I/O, you could ask for the “best photo from each of the National Parks I visited.” The AI uses a variety of signals to determine what’s the “best” of a given set, including things like lighting, blurriness, and lack of background distortion, among other things. It would then combine that with its understanding of the geolocation of the photos to find those taken at National Parks.

Google said the feature could be used for more than just photo retrieval alone; users would also be able to ask questions to get helpful answers. For instance, a parent could ask Google Photos what themes they had used for their child’s last four birthdays. The AI would be able to analyze party photos and determine if a theme was involved, like “mermaid,” “princess,” “superhero” or anything else. It could then tell the parent when those themes were last used.

More practical questions could be those that help you recall a specific event, like “what did we order last time at this restaurant” — presuming you like to photograph your meals. Or you could ask “where did we camp last time” at a specific destination, like Yosemite, the company suggests. You could also use the feature to help you put together photos for an album or to summarize all the things you did on a trip.

The AI understands the context of your photo gallery, including the important people in your life, your hobbies, your favorite foods, and other relevant details and memories.

To access Ask Photos, select U.S. users will be able to find the feature within Google Labs, as it’s still in the experimental phase. The company says the feature’s development is guided by its AI Principles, and the private data in Photos will never be used for ad targeting. However, Google employees may review users’ queries to help improve the AI over time. The AI’s answers will not be reviewed by humans, unless the user reaches out for support, to provide feedback, or to report abuse or harm.

Interested users can sign up on the waitlist for early access to Ask Photos.