Google Photos started testing Ask Photos in September. An update to Google Photos for Android today tones down the UI of this Gemini-powered search capability.
Those in the US that have access to Ask Photos see the “Search” tab replaced by “Ask” with a magnifying glass icon badged with the Gemini sparkle in the corner.
Previously, tapping the bottom bar would take you to a fullscreen UI reminiscent of a chat conversation with a field at the bottom to “Search or ask a question.”
Google has now brought back the previous search screen with “Suggestions,” like Screenshots, Videos, and Favorites, for common queries. The classic search pill at the top is shrunken down to make room for an “Ask” button. Tapping takes you to the chat screen.
Old vs. new
This is the right move as most of the time you don’t want conversational search. Ask Photos is not necessarily suited for queries where you just want to see all results in a grid, with standard Google Photos search ultimately quite good. In fact, Google updated this “classic search” with natural language lookup and “Best Match” in September.
We’re seeing this new Ask Photos behavior with version 7.14 of Google Photos for Android. Gemini-powered search remains an experimental feature in Google Labs that is only in the US. There’s also a waitlist.
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