PALO ALTO, Calif. — Google Maps is embarking on a new path driven by artificial intelligence.

The change announced Thursday will bring more of the revolutionary AI technology that Google has already been establishing itself in its dominant search engine to the digital maps service that the Internet company launched nearly 20 years ago as part of its efforts to expand into new frontiers.

Google Maps recently surpassed 2 billion monthly users worldwide for the first time, a milestone that illustrates how dependent people have become on the service’s directions during their daily commutes and excursions to new places. With the introduction of Google’s AI-powered Gemini technology, maps are now set to become entertainment guides in addition to navigation tools.

Starting this week, in the United States only, users will be able to chat with Google Maps to ask for recommendations on what to do in specific locations in a neighborhood or city and receive listings of restaurants, bars and other nearby attractions including reviews that have been posted. compiled over the years. The new features will also provide more detailed information on parking options near a designated destination as well as walking directions that the user can check after leaving the car.

“We’re entering a new era of maps,” Miriam Daniel, general manager of Google Maps, told reporters Wednesday during a preview of the features shown in Palo Alto, California. “We are transforming the way you navigate and explore the world. »

Google Maps is also trying to address complaints by introducing more detailed images that will make it easier to see which lane of the road to be in well before you have to turn.

In another AI twist, Google Maps will allow external developers to leverage the language models underlying its Gemini technology to allow questions about specific destinations, such as apartments or restaurants, and get a response to their queries in seconds. Google says this new feature, which will initially go through a testing phase, has undergone a fact-checking process it calls “grounding.”

Google’s Waze maps, which focus exclusively on real-time driving directions, will use AI to provide its approximately 180 million monthly users with a conversational way to announce road hazards and other potential issues. to affect travel times.

The decision to introduce AI into a service that so many people rely on to get from one place to another reflects Google’s growing confidence in its ability to prevent its Gemini technology from providing users with false or misleading information, also known as “hallucinations”. Google’s AI has already been caught hallucinating in some of the summaries that began circulating in May, including tips for putting glue on pizza and a claim that America’s fourth president, James Madison, reportedly graduated from the University of Wisconsin, located in a town named after him.