Google has halted the rollout of its AI-driven "Ask Photos" feature in the Google Photos app over latency, quality, and user experience concerns. The decision was confirmed by Jamie Aspinall, Google Photos Product Manager, who said that the feature doesn't meet Google's standards at the moment and will be improved over two weeks.
Unveiled at Google I/O 2024, "Ask Photos" is an experimental feature that utilizes Google's Gemini AI models, which allow for natural language search of photo libraries. One can say, "Show me the best picture for each beach I have been to," and so the AI will fetch the images. The feature intends to allow a more intuitive and efficient way to access a huge gallery of images.
The rollout was initially limited to a small pool of users. The feedback, however, was telling: these users found the responses slow and inconsistent search results inconsistent. Acknowledging these issues, Aspinall stated that the current rendition doesn't meet the desired standards of performance and user experience. Google now hopes to fix these issues and release an improved version in around two weeks.
Alongside the suspension of "Ask Photos," Google has also enhanced the traditional search functions of Google Photos. Now users can search using quotation marks for exact text matches contained within file names, camera model names, captions, or text within photos. This emphasizes a more accurate specification of search and overall enhancement of user experience.
This is not the first time that Google has decided to freeze an AI product launch. Earlier, the launch of "AI Overview" in Search had been frozen due to flawed results, and the Gemini-based image generation feature had been stopped in its tracks for incidents of historical misrepresentation.
This signals a conscientious mindset at Google towards rolling out the more complex AI-based functionalities only when they have gained the desired level of quality and reliability.
The "Ask Photos" temporary halt showcases all that a tech company is up against when it tries to institute advanced AI features into consumer products. The very thought of making an intuitive and efficient way to search through photos is appealing-and yet, technology still has to measure up to end-user performance and satisfaction.
To represent this intention, Google has placed an incredibly high benchmark for AI-based experiences and quality. The tech giant has optimized the pre-launch for large rollouts and has gone back for the next round of refinement of "Ask Photos" itself.