GoKawiilis a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.
You may be familiar with Gemini as the thing that’s in every Google service you use — whether you want it or not.
While it’s been a constant, sometimes unwelcome presence in Gmail for at least the past year, it’s a relatively new addition to Maps. And you know what? It’s kind of great.
To put it to the test, I had Gemini plan a day-long itinerary for me around the city. After an hour or so of having Gemini find stuff for me — playgrounds near the new light rail extension, kid-friendly restaurants with vehicle themes, you get the gist — I was impressed. Some of the suggestions were obvious, but I also bookmarked a handful of spots not on my radar.
Gemini had big shoes to fill: my own. I’m a Google Maps fiend. I use it for normal stuff like getting around, but also, sometimes I just like scrolling around and seeing if anything new catches my eye. You can find some real gems this way. I’ve found bike routes, playgrounds, hidden parks, and new coffee shops to try. I’d spend all day every day wandering around Seattle on public transit going to bookstores and fancy stationery shops if I could. It’s how I usually spend a day off, but I also tend to get overwhelmed by the endless possibilities and just wind up visiting one of a couple of neighborhoods I know well. So I had Gemini chart me a path into less familiar territory.
Tapping “Ask Maps” in the app presents you with a familiar chatbot. Gemini found a coffee shop I hadn’t been to yet in Pioneer Square, which is honestly impressive.
Gemini pops up as “Ask Maps” and presents you with a text box when you tap on it. It answers questions based on data in Google Maps, including user reviews, but can pull in information from other sources, too. If you ask whether to bring an umbrella on your trip across town, it can check the weather for you — that kind of thing.
I gave it my parameters: I would be traveling by public transit and I wanted a stop for lunch, a nice walk somewhere, and a coffee shop where I could work on my laptop, in that order. I wanted to visit two different neighborhoods and needed to be home by 4:30. Its first suggestions were very me-coded — a cafe next to a bookstore and a reliable coffee shop downtown — but I’d been to both recently. After a little back-and-forth it was settled: tacos, plants, and a Scandinavian-inspired coffee shop.
Tacos Chukis is familiar to me but I’d never been. I almost walked by the place, since it’s tucked into the back of a building with a half-dozen other retail shops and no sign on the sidewalk. But Gemini steered me to the right spot, and right on time: It had only opened up 15 minutes before I walked in. My AI itinerary hinted that the house specialty with grilled pineapple was a popular choice, and I found out why. Three excellent tacos later, it was time to head to my next stop.
Except I was ahead of schedule, so asked Gemini to find a unique shop nearby I could check out before walking north to the park. It confidently recommended Elliott Bay Books — a great spot, but definitely not “one block east” as it claimed. This was the only major hallucination I encountered in this experiment, but it could have been a real pain if I’d followed its instructions. Did I mention it was pouring rain outside?
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