Google Maps ‘Ask Maps’ Update Adds Food Orders, Hotel Bookings

Image credit: Abondance

Google Maps significantly updated its “Ask Maps” feature for users in the United States, transforming it into a personal assistant capable of ordering food, booking hotels, and securing event tickets directly within the application.

The enhanced artificial intelligence capabilities allow the navigation service to perform transactional tasks through integrations with partner platforms, Google said.

U.S. users can now utilize “Ask Maps” to order food from restaurants by connecting with services such as Square, Toast, and Uber Eats. The update also enables direct hotel bookings through various partner sites and facilitates the discovery and purchase of event tickets.

Google stated that the new food ordering, hotel booking, and ticketing functionalities are exclusively available to users within the United States.

A new “Personal Intelligence” feature allows “Ask Maps” to customize responses and recommendations by leveraging user data from Gmail and Google Calendar. This personalization tool is disabled by default, requiring users to actively enable it.

The company reported that “Ask Maps” now retains previous conversations, which enables users to resume prior searches or continue travel planning without starting over.

Both the “Personal Intelligence” feature and a new real-time transit widget are being rolled out across all markets where “Ask Maps” is currently available, Google said.

Source: Abondance