Google announced three new features for Maps on Tuesday that should streamline sharing your experiences. Despite being a strong maps application itself, Google relies on everyday users to contribute their reviews, photos and videos so others doing research can make more informed decisions about places they plan to visit. With the new updates to Google Maps, you can access your photos faster to contribute to information about places you've been. You can also choose to have Google's AI model, Gemini, caption your photos and more quickly check the contributions you've made in the past.
New photo and video recommendations
It's not hard to share photos or videos for a location on Google Maps, but the app will now offer photo and video suggestions from your saved images -- if you give it permission to do so. The new feature will appear on the Contribute tab at the bottom of the maps app. When scrolling through the view, you'll see photo and video recommendations or the option to upload other photos.
How the specific photo and video recommendations are determined isn't clear, but the new feature will likely use a photo's geolocation if that setting is enabled in your camera's settings.
A Google representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
This feature is now available globally on Android and will expand to iOS in the coming months.
Gemini will auto-caption your photos
Google's giving your photos some Gemini power by automatically analyzing and captioning them once you've selected them to share. This could be helpful in situations where you have selected several photos you don't care to caption.
If you don't like what Gemini comes up with, you can edit or remove the caption completely before publishing your photos to Maps.
Gemini captions are available in English on iOS and will expand to other languages globally and Android in the future.
New ways to view your contributions
You can now show off your prior contributions to Google's Local Guide community program.
When you contribute, you gain points, and the more you contribute, the more you can level up as a Local Guide. All your points and badges are now prominently displayed on your profile. Google's also adding gold profiles for high-level contributors, so you know you're reading reviews from experienced users.
The new contributor updates are rolling out now on Android, iOS and desktop.