Google is rolling out a slew of new features — some powered by AI — across Search, Maps, and Gemini that are designed to help people plan their summer vacations. The new features arrive as users have been turning to tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT for help with planning trips.
Google Search’s AI Overviews, which display a snapshot of information at the top of the results page, can now help users get trip ideas for certain regions or countries. Starting this week, users can search for something like “create an itinerary for Costa Rica with a focus on nature.”
From there, you will be able to browse through photos and reviews and see locations on an expandable map. When you’re ready to save an itinerary, you can tap “Export” to share the recommendations through Docs or Gmail. Or, you can save them as a custom list in Google Maps.
The new feature is available for English language queries in the U.S. on mobile and desktop.
Google is also making Gemini’s Gems feature available to everyone for free. A Gem is a tool that lets you create custom AI experts for any task within Gemini. This means that users can now set up a trip planner that can help them pick a destination to go to and suggest what to pack.
In addition, while Google has allowed users to get alerts on price drops for flights for quite some time now, it’s now going to do the same with hotels. Users will now see a new option to track hotel prices for chosen dates and destinations. You can select filters for your hotel search, such as star ratings or beach access, for a specific area. If prices go down, Google will send you an email.
Hotel price tracking is launching globally this week on mobile and desktop browsers.
As for Maps, Google is rolling out the ability for users to turn their screenshots into solid vacation plans. When planning a vacation, people often take screenshots to bookmark places they want to visit, but can sometimes forget about these photos in their camera roll.
Now, users can give Maps access to their photos to allow the app to automatically identify places mentioned in your screenshots so you can review and save the ones you want to a list. The places that you save will show up on the map so you can get an overview of your plans.
This feature is rolling out this week in the U.S. in English on iOS, and will launch on Android soon.
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