Gemini-powered “Ask Photos” for Google Photos is slowly beginning to roll out to users

I’ll never forget showing off in-app searches in Google Photos when it first came out. I’m still a bit blown away by how good my results are when I search for photos of the beach, a certain city, or simply one of my kiddos. It feels like magic most of the time, honestly, and it seems Google is getting ready to push search in Google Photos to the next level with Ask Photos – along with a bit of help from Gemini.

Find what you want, just faster

We’ve all been there, endlessly scrolling through our photo galleries, desperately searching for that one specific shot. With Ask Photos, Google hopes that frustration becomes a thing of the past.

Instead of relying on the perfect combination of keywords, you can simply ask Google Photos what you want. It’s like having a personal photo assistant that can parse through your bloated photo collection in seconds.

Simply ask it to show you the photos from your last vacation or the coffee shop you recently visited, and Google Photos (again, with some help from Gemini) will get those images without a bunch of prompting.

Uncover Hidden Memories

Ever snapped a photo to remember an important detail, only to forget what that detail was? Ask Photos can help there, too. Thanks to Gemini’s advanced understanding of images, it can pull out information that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle.

Ask about where you vacationed last year, when your coupons expire, or even what themes you’ve used for your kid’s birthday parties over the years. Gemini doesn’t just look for keywords; it actually understands what’s happening in your photos, from decorations to the text on a birthday cake.

Or imagine you’ve just returned from a fantastic trip, and now you’re trying to pick out the best photos to share online. Just Ask Photos to create a trip highlight for you. It’ll suggest the top pictures and even write a personalized caption, ready to share on social media.

How Ask Photos actually works

• Understanding your question: Ask Photos doesn’t just look for keywords; it tries to understand what you’re asking. It then forms a plan to find the answer, using a mix of traditional search techniques and Gemini’s advanced understanding of natural language concepts.
• Crafting the response: Next, it analyzes the search results, using Gemini’s multimodal capabilities to understand what’s happening in each photo and even read text within the images. It then picks the most relevant photos and videos and crafts a helpful response.
• Ensuring safety and remembering corrections: Ask Photos is still experimental, so it might not always get it right. But Google’s built in layers of safeguards to ensure responses are safe and appropriate. And if you correct it or provide extra information, it’ll remember those details for next time.
• Ensuring privacy: Google clearly is taking privacy seriously, and photos can get a bit dicey. So, Google is claiming that your personal data in Google Photos is never used for ads, and your conversations and personal data in Ask Photos won’t be reviewed by humans, except in rare cases to address abuse.

How to try it out sooner than later

Ask Photos is an experimental feature that’s starting to roll out now, with even more capabilities on the horizon. It won’t be widely available until later this year, but it is rolling via Google Labs and there’s an early access request form you can fill out if you’d like to get in on the action. Simply head to this site to get on the early-access wait-list, and hopefully you’ll be ready to Ask Photos about your image collection sooner than later.