Rushil Agrawal / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Gemini will soon integrate with Google Photos, allowing natural language queries to surface relevant user photos.
- Google has shared details about this integration, giving examples of what you can ask Gemini.
- Thanks to the integration, Gemini will be able to find photos based on faces, locations, descriptions, and more with natural language commands.
Google recently announced that Gemini would soon be able to tap into Google Photos, letting the AI chatbot answer natural language queries about your stored images. This would be possible through Gemini Extensions, which have recently been renamed to just “apps.” While we are still waiting for the feature to roll out widely, Google has now shared more details on how Gemini’s Google Photos integration will work.
Through a new support document, Google is laying out how you can use Google Photos in conjunction with the Gemini app. You’ll need apps for both Gemini and Google Photos installed on your device and have Gemini Apps Activity turned on, as that’s the requirement for getting Apps in Gemini to work.
Further, the feature is being gradually released to a select group of invited users in the US, so everyone won’t have access. Currently, only English prompts are answered, though thankfully, both spoken and typed prompts work in the same way for Gemini’s connected apps.
As you’d expect, you need to connect Google Photos to Gemini Apps to begin with. Presuming you are eligible, you can use the tag “@Google Photos” to invoke the Google Photos app within Gemini. This would initialize the Gemini Apps connection and let you set it up for Google Photos integration.
Google says you can find photos based on a wide variety of parameters, like:
- Your face groups or relationships you’ve saved in Photos: For example, “Find my photos of Alex.”
- Location or date the photo was taken: For example, “Show my photos from last summer” or “Show my photos from my most recent trip.”
- Description of what’s in the photo: For example, “Show me recent selfies” or “Find my photos of landscapes.”
- Your current conversation with the Gemini mobile app.
You can also ask Gemini about important details that are present in the photos, such as:
- @Google Photos what themes have we had for Lena’s birthday parties?
- @Google Photos what did we eat at the hotel in Stanly?
- @Google Photos what were some of the things we ate in Mexico City?
- @Google Photos what are the top 10 things we saw on our last trip?
- @Google Photos what’s my driver’s license number?
The results that Gemini returns can be opened in Google Photos, letting you action it within the Photos app as you usually can. On Android phones and tablets, you can even drag and drop a photo from the Gemini on-screen overlay into another app.
The Google Photos integration seemingly supercharges Gemini into being more useful, but there are still limitations. Google says you can’t use the AI digital assistant to edit your photos, create collages or albums, or add labels to your photos in the Photos app. So, when the feature begins to roll out widely, it would be best used to retrieve information rather than manipulate data.
From all the details that Google has shared about the integration, it does sound like the feature is pretty much a rename of the Ask Photos feature that the company announced at Google I/O. The feature would be an upgrade over the basic search functionality that Google Photos currently offers, so we hope Google will roll it out widely soon.
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