Earlier this year, Google promised to bring more than 100 AI-powered improvements to Google Maps by the end of the year. And at the ongoing Google I/O conference, they revealed what’s coming up for the app in the coming months. This includes new routing information, improvements in the Live View function, expansion of the detailed street maps, area busyness information, and a more personalized Maps experience. These new features will be rolling out in the next few months for Google Maps for Android users.
Google Maps will soon update the routing information that you get when navigating to a place and give you the fastest option that will “reduce your chances of encountering a hard-braking moment.” Using machine learning and navigation information, they will recommend that route with fewer hard-brakes if the ETA is almost the same to the original recommended route. The Live View feature meanwhile gets powered by augmented reality so you can see helpful details that will guide you to where you need to go on foot.
Maps launched a detailed street maps feature last year but only in limited cities. It includes details like sidewalks, crosswalks, pedestrian islands, shape and width of a road to scale, etc. They will be adding 50 more to the list by the end of the year including Berlin, Sao Paolo, Seattle, and Singapore. Busyness information meanwhile will be expanding to certain areas so you can see which are hotspots to avoid at certain times or to check out what are these busy but interesting places to visit.
Google Maps will also be tailor fitting your app experience based on the time of day and whether you’re traveling or in your own city. For example, if you live in New York and you open the app at 8AM on a weekday, it will show you nearby coffee shops instead of dinner places. If it detects you’re on a holiday in another place, it will highlight local landmarks and tourist attractions that you may want to visit.
All these new and improved Google Maps features should be rolling out in the next few months. We didn’t get an exact time table but we’ll probably hear more about each feature by the time they roll out.