Google is temporarily halting the rollout of its AI-powered “Ask Photos” feature within Google Photos, citing issues with latency, quality, and user experience. The experimental feature uses Google’s Gemini AI models to answer common-sense questions about photos.
A product manager for Google Photos stated that the team paused the feature at a small scale while addressing these concerns. A new version is expected to be released in two weeks, which will restore the original speed and recall of the search function.
Meanwhile, Google also announced improvements to keyword search within Photos, allowing users to find exact text matches using quotes or visual matches without quotes. The feature was introduced last May at I/O 2024 and aimed to provide answers like “what themes have you chosen for a child’s birthday party?”
This is not the first time Google has paused an AI-powered feature due to user criticism. Last May, it halted the rollout of “AI Overview” in search after providing nonsensical answers on social media, while in February, it paused its image-generation tool after users reported historical inaccuracies.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/678858/google-photos-ask-photos-ai-search-rollout-pause