Google Photos Proved You Can Add AI With Care And Compromise

AI has taken over basically everything in tech. Whether it’s search, social media, or basically every other app on your phone, AI is just everywhere. It demands your attention and is often not optional, but Google Photos just showcased an increasingly rare example of building out AI features with a sense of compromise and care for the end user.

This issue of 9to5Google Weekender is a part of 9to5Google’s rebooted newsletter that highlights the biggest Google stories with added commentary and other tidbits. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox early!

Google Photos has technically always relied on AI, it just did so before “AI” became a buzzword. Machine learning is what made it possible for Photos to recognize faces in your pictures, search for objects and scenes in a picture or video, and more. The app we’ve all come to love has been about AI since day one.

But the recent infusion of Gemini AI into Google Photos is what almost felt like too much.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

“Ask Photos” debuted last year as an AI enhancement to search, a tall order given how good it already was. Google’s promise was to deliver natural language search that could dive deeper than the existing solution, answering questions through the use of your photo library. A good idea, but one that really didn’t work out at first. Ask Photos was very slow and cumbersome to use, to the point where a “classic search” shortcut was required just to get things done in many cases. Again, the idea was good, but the execution left a lot of room for improvement.

In many cases, a feature rollout like this would have just been left. It’s AI after all, so surely people want it, right? That’s the attitude that, sadly, feels predominant nowadays.

But Google didn’t do that.

Rather, Google quietly paused the rollout, directly admitting that Ask Photos “isn’t where it needs to be.” The company has since introduced a new version of the feature that addresses complaints such as speed, while also finding a stellar compromise on functionality.

The updated version of Ask Photos meets in the middle of “make everything an AI chatbot” and an experience that many have come to love. When you search, Google starts turning up traditional results almost immediately. Then, after those initial results come up, you’ll see a “Thinking” status which indicates that AI is doing work in the background to expand on the search. When it’s complete, you’ll get any relevant answers you might have asked for. So if I search “What did I have for dinner last Saturday,” Photos will just show me those images immediately, then give me an AI breakdown of the meal, with the ability to follow up on that message for more information.

That alone is a great compromise. It delivers the functionality of AI with the speed of a normal search. Great!

What makes it better is that Photos acknowledges when AI isn’t needed. If you search for something normal, like “Mountains,” it just finds relevant images, then uses Gemini to try (unsuccessfully in my tests so far) to highlight the “best match.” No AI chatbot nonsense, just the pictures you wanted to find.

I think this experience is just a masterclass in debuting new AI features, but with true care for the user experience and a willingness to compromise on it all. Google is leaving this all on by default, but it actually feels like an overall positive to the experience rather than, well, AI nonsense.

Perhaps best of all, I can just turn it all off if I want to. Through an updated settings menu, Ask Photos can just be turned off completely and, when it is, I just get the classic search experience. It’s sad how refreshing that is, because it should be the default across any product that has rushed to add AI features.

This all feels like the complete opposite of the strategy many others have employed. For example, Meta is basically shoving AI in front of all of its users, with invasive Meta AI integrations in Facebook and Instagram, and the app previously used just for managing its popular Ray-Ban smart glasses now transforming to be almost entirely about AI. There’s no care for the user in that, it’s all about pushing AI forward. Google has been guilty about being aggressive about AI too – AI Overviews not being optional comes to mind – but the company has really shown in Photos that there is a better way.

What do you think? Has Google struck a good compromise? Let’s discuss!

This Week’s Top Stories

Samsung’s next Galaxy launch is on July 9

Earlier this week, Samsung officially confirmed rumors. The next Galaxy Unpacked event takes place on July 9 with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 being the star of the show, and leaks this week revealed a lot of what’s in store:

Samsung has reservations open now for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7, with a $50 credit when you pre-order and up to $1,150+ in savings. Reservations are free, and there’s no obligation to actually buy a device if you sign up, but there’s no other time you can get that $50 credit (which can go towards Galaxy Watch 8), 3x reward points, and other perks.

The Nothing Phone (3) has made a lot of choices

Meanwhile, the Nothing Phone (3) is also making some noise ahead of its July 1 launch next week. Leaks have revealed the… interesting design, and Nothing has also confirmed a few key details too.