147 | Friday Finds: Ask Maps
Google Maps Is Now the Local Who Knows Everything
Friday Finds is a StrefaTECH series that highlights new tech that I’ve run across. These are quick, “how-cool-is-that” articles to point you to something you might enjoy. Hope you do!
At dinner last night I asked my husband, “Can I tell you about the latest cool AI thing I used today?”1
I’d been running errands, dropped something off in Danville and was heading back home to Bloomsburg when I remembered I needed cash. I opened Google Maps and just asked: “Where’s a drive-up ATM between here and Bloomsburg?” I didn’t type into a search box the way I’ve done a thousand times. I just asked conversationally. (Note: I had just listened to a podcast about the new “Ask Maps” feature, so candidly I wanted to try out the new tech!)
Maps replied with a couple of options, including directions and travel times. I was impressed: they were spot-on. So I continued, since it was a multi-task errand (aren’t they all?) “CVS or Walgreens between here and Bloomsburg?” I asked. Maps replied that there weren’t any close by, but the ones in Bloomsburg wouldn’t take me out of the way by much on my way home. I was even more impressed.
So I tried my luck and, because I also needed to mail something, I asked: “Is there a mailbox over there?”2 meaning near the CVS it had just suggested.
That’s where my jaw dropped a little. Ask Maps came back and said there’s a mailbox at Weis Markets, just a few hundred meters from the Bloomsburg CVS.3 It was the kind of thing a local would have told me, but I couldn’t have come up with on my own!
And notably, it knew what I was talking about with that third question, remembering the context from the first two exchanges in our chat. We’ve gotten used to this with AI chatbots: the back-and-forth, the context it remembers, the way it figures out what you actually need instead of just matching your keywords. I feel like it should’ve been this way all along, and I’m liking it!
What Is Ask Maps?
It launched March 12, 2026, powered by Google’s Gemini AI, and Google is calling it the biggest Maps update in over a decade.4 It draws on more than 300 million places and reviews from 500 million contributors, so it has a lot to work with when you ask it something.
It’s rolling out gradually on iPhone and Android in the US. Look for the Ask Maps button in your Google Maps app. (When I spotted it on my iPhone, I may have said “ooh” out loud, though I was really bummed that it appeared after a very trying 8-day travel adventure.) Desktop Ask Maps is coming soon, and I can’t wait, being someone who has become a lazy, last-minute travel planner.
Go Try It
The next time you’re out and something comes up, open Maps, tap Ask Maps, and just tell it what you need. Then ask a follow-up and see if it surprises you the way it surprised me.
Oh, and if you’re behind the steering wheel and are tempted to use Ask Maps while driving, please be safe and be sure to…
Make Good Choices
Anyone who’s been married for long knows that yes, this was a rhetorical question!
These three quotes are exact—you can see a history of your Ask Maps chats (similar to in AI chatbots), so I just copied them here.
As an American I found the “few hundred meters” response charmingly international, but I’m completely baffled as to why it didn’t give me a response in feet.
Google blog post, March 12, 2026: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/ask-maps-immersive-navigation/.