This Google Maps update is refreshingly not all about AI

Gemini plays just a bit part in getting you where you want to go.

If Google is in the middle of reinventing itself around AI, you wouldn’t know it from the latest Google Maps updates.

Yes, there are the obligatory new Gemini AI integrations in the form of review summaries and more granular search queries, and those are what dominate Google’s press release about the news. But for the most part, the update is about meat-and-potatoes improvements to the core mapping and navigation experience, most of which don’t involve generative AI.