Ask Maps gets more helpful with food ordering, transit updates, and personalized answers
Google Maps is rolling out a broad expansion of Ask Maps, the conversational assistant built with Gemini. New agentic capabilities let the app place food orders, search hotels and events, surface personalized answers from connected Gmail accounts, deliver real-time transit delay information, and accept map corrections through plain-language prompts.
What is new in Ask Maps
Ask Maps can now handle complex, multi-step tasks such as ordering takeout along a route or comparing live hotel prices and availability. The update also introduces a live transit widget inside Ask Maps, support for resuming past conversations, and a conversational way to submit suggested edits, including uploading a photo of a storefront sign so Maps can detect updated hours.
Order food through a conversation with Maps
Ask Maps can find open restaurants along a planned route that match a specific craving, factor in saved places and dietary preferences, and add the selected dish to a cart for review before checkout. Food ordering is rolling out with partners Square and Toast, with Uber Eats listed as coming soon. Google says it will continue to evolve these experiences while co-developing the Universal Commerce Protocol for Food with industry partners.
A sample prompt in the announcement shows the level of detail the assistant can handle. A user can ask Maps to order spicy pad kee mao with seafood for pickup on the way home, and Ask Maps will surface matching restaurants, consider saved places and dietary needs, and add the dish to a cart so the user only needs to confirm and pay.
Find hotels and local events through Ask Maps
The same conversational surface now answers hotel and event queries. A user planning a conference in downtown Miami can ask for a decently priced, top-rated hotel with an artsy vibe within walking distance of a gym and restaurants, and Ask Maps will compare real-time prices and check availability. For nearby things to do, it will surface concerts, comedy shows, and other events with links for tickets.
How Personal Intelligence works in Ask Maps
Personal Intelligence lets users opt in to connecting Ask Maps with Gmail, with Calendar support described as coming soon. Once connected, the assistant factors in existing reservations and flights to give contextual suggestions, such as ideas for spending a few hours near a hotel before a flight the next day, or guidance on when to leave for the airport.
Connecting Gmail is off by default, and the user decides whether to enable it. If history settings are on, Ask Maps also remembers past conversations, so a user can ask it to remind them what activities were suggested for a Seattle trip and get the previous ideas back without starting over.
Real-time transit updates inside Ask Maps
Ask Maps already surfaces live traffic, construction, and accident alerts, and shows how busy a shop or restaurant is before a visit. The new transit widget extends that live data to buses, trains, subways, and ferries. A user asking about a ferry to Taronga Zoo with views of the Opera House, for example, sees all options on a virtual departure board, with wait times adjusting minute by minute if a service is running late.
Share tips and update business hours by chatting
Maps draws on insights from more than 500 million contributors, and the new release makes contributing easier. Users can suggest edits conversationally from Ask Maps or the Contribute tab, including uploading a photo of a storefront sign so Maps can read new hours from the image and ask for confirmation before submitting. Insider tips, such as extra parking behind a building, can be added the same way. Built-in protection systems still review every suggested edit for accuracy and policy compliance.
Where the Ask Maps updates are available
The live transit widget, personalized responses, and conversation history are rolling out everywhere Ask Maps is already available. Food ordering, hotel and event discovery, and conversational contributions are rolling out in the United States first, with additional countries to follow.
Ask Maps itself is also expanding its geographic footprint in this release, rolling out in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico, along with more than 150 countries and territories in English.
FAQ
What can Ask Maps do now that it could not do before?
Ask Maps can order takeout along a route, find hotels and events through conversational queries, surface personalized answers from a connected Gmail account, show real-time transit delays in a dedicated widget, and accept suggested edits and insider tips through plain-language prompts.
Which food ordering partners are supported in Ask Maps?
Food ordering is rolling out with Square and Toast as launch partners, with Uber Eats listed as coming soon.
Is connecting Gmail to Ask Maps required for Personal Intelligence?
No. Gmail integration is off by default, and users choose whether to connect it. Calendar support is described as coming soon.
This article summarizes reporting from blog.google.