MANILA -- Want to plan a night out with your friends? Google Maps will soon be able to help you with that.

During a media roundtable earlier this week, Chris Phillips, vice president and general manager for Geo at Google, said the tech giant is now applying generative artificial intelligence (AI) with Gemini models to Google Maps.

Miriam Daniel, general manager at Google Maps, showed how the app can show suggested places to visit when users type prompts like "things to do on a night out with friends" in a specific location.

With the help of Gemini, Google Maps also comes up with a summary of customer reviews of places one can visit, and even show answers to frequently asked questions about the spot.

Aside from this, Google also said it is introducing new AI-driven changes to Waze, the community-driven navigation map app which it bought in 2013.  

Waze general manager Gai Berkovich said drivers will soon be able to tap on the reporting button in their app then speak normally in English.

"Thanks to Gemini models, our system can quickly understand what you are saying and add [a] real-time report to the map without using [a] specific voice command," Berkovich said.

The Waze updates will be launched in beta to trusted testers worldwide on Android and iOS.

The conversational features on Google Maps, meanwhile, will be rolled out in the United States starting this week.

Google launched its generative AI tool called Gemini in late 2023. 

Like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Gemini can give out information based on specific questions asked by users.

Tips on using Google Gemini