Google quietly paused the rollout of its AI-powered ‘Ask Photos’ search feature

is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets. Google is pausing the rollout of its AI-powered “Ask Photos” feature within Google Photos, which has been slowly expanding since last fall. “Ask Photos isn’t where it needs to be,” wrote Jamie Aspinall, a product manager for Google Photos, in a post on X responding to criticism, citing three factors: latency, quality, and user experience. The experimental feature is powered by Google’s “most capable” Gemini AI models. Specifically, it’s a specialized version of its Gemini models that are “only used for Ask Photos,” according to Google. Aspinall said Google had paused the feature’s rollout “at very small numbers while we address these issues,” and that in about two weeks, the team would ship a better version “that brings back the speed and recall of the original search. At the same time, Google also announced Tuesday ... Read full article.