Google Maps is changing to offer Indian users the visual experiences they demand… here’s how

While Google is using AI and imagery from local partners, Genesys International and Tech Mahindra, to enable Streetview, it is also launching Lens in Maps across 15 Indian cities by January 2024 letting users get more information about businesses on Android phones by simply pointing the camera down a street. Similarly, Live View Walking Navigation will give users arrows, directions, and distance markers overlaid on the Maps screen in over 3,000 cities for Android users.

For Google, which has been using AI maps “for nearly a decade”, the technology has allowed to “map millions of kilometers of urban and rural roads and more than 300 million buildings”. This is serving millions of users on a daily basis, on average surfacing over 50 million searches across multiple languages, and powering over 2.5 billion kms of directions every single day on Google Maps in India, a Google Maps blog post elaborated. With the help of AI, Google has now put over 30 million businesses and places on its maps, enabling over 900 million connections a month between consumers and businesses.

“Our AI technology has made commute decisions more seamless, helping people choose the most time-efficient route with traffic predictions,” the blog post said, citing the example of Project Greenlight which analyses traffic patterns to support cities in optimising the traffic flow at intersections.

“ETAs have slightly more error bars in India because there’s a mix of vehicle modes and traffic congestion is high. So we constantly have models that are looking at trips and trip outcomes. What did we predict at the beginning of the trip and what was the outcome at the end of the trip,” Daniel explained, adding that it is “continuously self learning and updating itself”.

Daniel said if Google can learn and solve some of the problems adequately in India, they can also take it to many parts of Africa and Latin America where there are similar patterns in traffic. “We have teams in India that are solving these problems almost on a real-time basis. And then we are doing that here because this is probably hitting the highest complexity for now,” she explained.

Catering to specific Indian needs, Google Maps will now have places of worship, medical facilities and government services in the country. It is also using these to launch an India-first innovation in the form of address descriptors that help local users understand addresses better like they do in real life. So when a user drops a pin and shares with someone, Google Maps will automatically find up to five of the most relevant landmarks and area names around their pinned address for reference helping users navigate into unfamiliar areas. This feature will launch in 75 cities early next year.

Daniel explained that Google Maps is also bringing in the AI-driven fuel-efficient routing feature to India in January. “From its launch in other countries, from October 2021 through September 2023 it’s already estimated to have helped prevent more than 2.4 million metric tons of CO2e emissions globally — the equivalent of taking approximately 5,00,000 fuel-based cars off the road for a year,” the blog post said. She said they are also working with ONDC and Namma Yatri mobility app to bringing metro schedules and bookings to users in Kochi, followed by other cities.