Google continues to expand Gemini AI capabilities across its services and apps. As part of its integration into Android, Google has announced new updates to Maps and Search, introducing features that aim to make travel planning more efficient.
Gemini Finds Places in Screenshots & Adds Them to Maps
Google is making saved travel screenshots more useful with a new AI-powered feature in Google Maps. Many of us take screenshots of places, itineraries, or recommendations for future trips but often forget them when the time comes. With this update, Gemini AI will scan your screenshots and identify places found in Maps, allowing you to review and organize them into a list.
Once added to a list, these locations will be highlighted in Google Maps, making them easy to remember and access when needed. The feature also supports list sharing, which is particularly useful when traveling in a group.
To use the feature, users must enable it in the app first. It is rolling out first to iOS users in the US, with Android support coming soon.
AI-Powered Country Trip Planning with AI Overviews
Google is also enhancing AI Overviews in Search, allowing users to plan broader trips beyond just specific locations. This means you can now search and create itineraries for entire districts or countries, expanding beyond the typical city-based trip planning.
With this Gemini-powered tool, users can now automatically generate day-to-day itineraries within Google Search, removing the need to manually create travel schedules in the Gemini app. Additionally, search results will now include photos and videos, providing more rich visual content compared to the text-heavy Gemini app.
Google is also expanding AI Overviews in Lens to more languages, including Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. This feature allows users to gain insights into places or objects by scanning them with the Lens camera.
Users will also have the option to export generated itineraries to Google Docs or Gmail for easy sharing and modification. Currently, this feature is available for English searches in the US on both web and mobile, with no timeline yet for global expansion.
Get Hotel Price Alerts
After improving flight tracking capabilities last year, Google is now expanding its price tracking feature to hotels. Through google.com/hotels, users can receive email alerts for cheaper hotel prices based on their searched location and travel dates—similar to how Google Flights tracking works.
Unlike the first two features, hotel price tracking is rolling out globally on both mobile and web.
Lastly, Google is highlighting that Gemini can now serve as a personal trip planner through Gems, a feature that is now available to free-tier users.
Are you planning to use any of these new Google and Gemini travel features for your upcoming trips? Let us know in the comments!
