- Ask Maps, Gemini's AI-powered Google Maps feature, is expanding to more than 150 countries, including Mexico.
- New features allow users to order food, book hotels, and buy event tickets from the app.
- Personal Intelligence connects with Gmail and Calendar to provide contextual recommendations.
- A real-time public transport widget has been added, along with improvements to community contributions.
Google has taken a giant leap forward in integrating artificial intelligence into its Maps app. The company unveiled Ask Maps, the biggest update to Google Maps in over a decade, incorporating the Gemini model to transform how users interact with navigation, place searches, and trip planning. This new conversational experience allows users to ask complex questions in natural language and receive contextualized answers, and it can now also perform real-world tasks, such as ordering food, booking hotels, or buying event tickets.
The update, announced on August 6, 2026, marks a shift in role: Ask Maps is no longer just a responsive assistant, but an active agent. With these new agentic capabilities, users can order dinner on their way home, find a hotel with very specific features, or discover things to do near their location, all without leaving Google Maps. Furthermore, the feature expands to over 150 English-speaking countries and territories, including Mexico, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and Japan, significantly broadening its global reach.
Food orders and reservations from Google Maps
One of the most striking new features is the ability to order takeout directly from the app . Ask Maps searches for open restaurants along the user's route, takes into account preferences such as dietary restrictions or saved locations, and once a restaurant is chosen, adds the desired dish to the cart so the user only has to review and complete the order. This feature is already available in the United States thanks to agreements with platforms like Square and Toast, and Uber Eats is expected to join soon.
The tool also allows users to find hotels with very specific criteria , such as an artistic atmosphere, proximity to gyms, or high ratings, comparing prices in real time and checking availability before displaying options. Similarly, Ask Maps can recommend local events, from concerts to shows, with direct links to purchase tickets. These transactional features bring Google Maps closer to becoming a super app, competing directly with platforms like Uber or Booking, although Google maintains its strategy of being the discoverer, not the merchant of registration.
Personal Intelligence: answers based on your context
Another major feature of this update is Personal Intelligence, an optional function that connects Ask Maps with Gmail and, soon, with Google Calendar . With the user's permission, the AI can access flight, hotel, or dinner reservations to offer recommendations much more tailored to each person's actual plans. For example, if someone has a flight the next day, they can ask what to do near the hotel before heading to the airport, and Ask Maps will suggest activities, restaurants, or even remind them what time to leave so they don't miss their flight.
Privacy is a fundamental pillar: the Gmail connection is disabled by default, and the user decides whether to enable it. Furthermore, if history is enabled, Ask Maps also remembers previous conversations, allowing you to pick up planning a trip right where you left off, without having to start from scratch. This contextual memory capability, similar to managing your location history in Google Maps , is especially useful for those organizing multi-day trips or who need to consult information frequently.
Real-time public transportation and community contributions
The update also improves the public transport experience with a new widget that displays real-time information on delays for buses, trains, subways, and ferries . Waiting times are updated minute by minute, allowing users to adjust their routes on the fly. This information complements the traffic, roadworks, and accident data already offered by Ask Maps, creating a much more comprehensive view of urban mobility, similar to how Google Maps shows real-time intercity bus information.
On the other hand, Google has modernized its community contributions system. Users can now contribute conversationally , for example, by uploading a photo of a business's hours so that AI can interpret the information and automatically suggest the corresponding update on Google Maps. The built-in protection system reviews the suggested edits to ensure their accuracy before publishing them. This feature is already available in the United States and will be rolled out to other countries gradually.
International expansion and availability
Google confirmed that Ask Maps is now available in Mexico, along with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and Japan, and expands to more than 150 countries and territories where Google Maps operates in English. Features like food ordering, hotel bookings, and event discovery are launching only in the United States, but the company has stated that they will reach more markets over time. Meanwhile, Personal Intelligence, conversation history, and the public transportation widget are already being rolled out in all countries where Ask Maps is active.
This expansion marks a significant milestone in Google's strategy to integrate Gemini across all its products. With over two billion monthly users, Google Maps becomes the perfect showcase to demonstrate the potential of conversational AI applied to everyday life. For local brands and businesses, this means that the quality of information on Google Maps (hours, photos, reviews, availability) will be even more crucial, as AI will use it to generate personalized recommendations.
Implications for the future of navigation and local trade
The evolution of Ask Maps not only affects consumers but also businesses and competition within the sector. Google Maps is positioning itself as an assistant capable of performing tasks, which could change how users discover and book local services. For cyclists, for example, AI can help find bike-friendly cafes, repair shops, or accommodations that allow bike storage, all with a single natural language query. While Google Maps doesn't replace specialized apps like Strava or Komoot, it does offer an additional layer of valuable contextual information.
In the competitive landscape, the arrival of these transactional features brings Google Maps closer to becoming a super app, while maintaining its business model based on advertising and licensing. Integration with platforms like Uber Eats, Square, and Toast allows Google to capture value at the point of purchase without incurring inventory or fulfillment costs. This strategy could redefine the relationship between discovery and transaction in local commerce, and startups will need to adapt by optimizing their presence on Google Maps and enriching their metadata with attributes that respond to conversational queries.
In short, the Ask Maps update represents a turning point in how we understand navigation and activity planning. The combination of Gemini's AI with Google Maps' massive database allows for more natural, personalized, and proactive responses, anticipating user needs. While some advanced features are currently only available in the United States, the expansion to over 150 English-speaking countries and Google's commitment to privacy (with Personal Intelligence disabled by default) pave the way for widespread adoption in the coming months. Users in Spain and Europe will have to wait a little longer to enjoy all the capabilities, but the direction is clear: Google Maps is no longer just a map, but an intelligent assistant that helps us decide, book, and buy in the real world.
