Google has resumed the rollout of its AI-powered “Ask Photos” feature in the Google Photos app after temporarily pausing it due to performance issues. First unveiled at the I/O developer conference, Ask Photos allows users to search their photo library using natural language prompts. It uses Google’s Gemini AI model to understand photo content, text, and metadata to deliver smarter and more intuitive search results. But early users had complained that the tool was slow, inconsistent, and often struggled with even simple queries.
In response to user feedback, Google took the feature offline for a few weeks to improve its speed and reliability. The company’s product manager, Jamie Aspinall, had publicly acknowledged the tool’s shortcomings on X, saying it wasn’t meeting expectations in terms of latency, search quality, or user experience. Google has now reintroduced the feature with changes aimed at restoring the responsiveness of the original search experience while maintaining the benefits of AI-enhanced results.
With the update, Ask Photos now brings in support from Google Photos’ classic search function to help surface quicker results for straightforward queries like “dogs” or “beach.” These basic results appear immediately, while the Gemini AI works in the background to provide more context-rich answers for more complex requests. For example, if you search for “white dog,” classic search might show relevant images right away, while the AI takes extra time to add personalised context, such as identifying the pet’s name and noting when photos of the dog first appeared in your library.
Users can still toggle between classic search and the AI-powered Ask Photos interface depending on their needs. This flexibility is designed to offer the best of both worlds: speed when it matters and depth when desired. Google has made it clear that this updated rollout is aimed at delivering both performance and meaningful insights, addressing a key concern raised by early testers.Ask Photos is now being made available to more users in the United States. To use it, users must be at least 18 years old, have their Google account language set to English, and have Face Groups enabled in their settings. This feature, which helps identify people and pets in your photo library, plays an important role in enabling the AI to personalise search responses. With these improvements, Google hopes Ask Photos can finally live up to its potential as a more helpful, intelligent way to rediscover memories.
