TL;DR
- Google has rolled out its Ask Photos feature to some Google Photos users.
- The feature only seems to be available to some US users who signed up for a waitlist.
- Ask Photos allows you to use natural language to search through your photo library.
Google announced an Ask Photos feature for Google Photos back in May. This feature, which is powered by Gemini, allows you to search for photos using natural language. It now looks like this feature is available for some users.
9to5Google and Android expert Mishaal Rahman spotted this rollout. However, it seems the feature is only coming to some US users who signed up for a waitlist. It also looks like this option is coming as a server-side change, so it doesn’t matter what version of Google Photos you’ve got. Check out a few screenshots below, courtesy of 9to5Google.
The Ask Photos feature allows you to search for photos using plain language. At the time of the feature’s reveal, Google gave examples like “What’s my license plate number?” and “Show me the best photo from each national park I’ve visited.” It also allows you to add searches for loved ones into the mix, making for a powerful search tool in theory.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen semantic search functionality in photos, as ASUS offers this feature for its gallery app. Nevertheless, this would be a major expansion of this technology in light of Google Photos being available on the vast majority of Android phones. This would also be a step up in complexity compared to the ASUS solution owing to Google’s facial recognition technology and Gemini smarts. So we’re keen to see this feature launch globally.