Google has paused the rollout of its AI-powered ‘Ask Photos’ feature in Google Photos. This feature, which Google has been rolling out since last fall, allows users to ask questions about their photos and videos in a natural way, like “Show me the best photo from each national park I’ve visited.” But what made Google pause the rollout? Read on to find out.
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On X, responding to a criticism, Jamie Aspinall– a Google Photos product manager– explained that the Ask Photos feature “isn’t where it needs to be, in terms of latency, quality and ux.” He added that the “rollout has been paused at very small numbers” while Google works to fix these problems.
Aspinall also promised that in about two weeks, a better version would be released that restores the original speed and improves the search accuracy. The Ask Photos feature is powered by Google’s “most capable” Gemini AI models, according to the tech giant.
This isn’t the first time Google has paused a new AI feature, The Verge reported. Last May, Google paused its AI Overview feature in Google Search due to inaccurate and confusing responses that spread on social media. Some mistakes included wrongly calling Barack Obama the first Muslim president and suggesting people put glue on pizza to keep cheese in place. Similarly, Google rolled out Gemini’s AI image-generation tool last February, but paused it after users spotted historical inaccuracies.
Meanwhile, Google has announced improvements to the keyword search function in Photos. Users can now use quotes to find exact matches in filenames, camera models, captions or text within photos. Searching without quotes will also include visual matches, making it easier to find specific pictures.