PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Google Maps is heading down a new road steered by artificial intelligence.
The shift announced Thursday will bring more of the revolutionary AI technology that Google already has been baking into its dominant search engine to the digital maps service that the internet company launched nearly 20 years ago as part of its efforts to expand into new frontiers.
Google Maps recently surpassed 2 billion monthly users worldwide for the first time, a milestone that illustrates how dependent people have become on the service’s directions during their daily commutes and excursions to new places. With the introduction of Google’s AI-powered Gemini technology, the maps are now being set up to become entertainment guides in addition to navigational tools.
Starting this week in the U.S. only, users will be able to converse with Google Maps to ask for tips on things to do around specific spots in a neighborhood or city and receive lists of restaurants, bars and other nearby attractions that include reviews that have been compiled through the years. The new features will also provide more detailed information about parking options near a designated destination along with walking directions for a user to check after departing the car.
“We are entering a new era of maps,” Miriam Daniel, general manager of Google Maps, told reporters Wednesday during a preview of the features presented in Palo Alto, California. “We are transforming how you navigate and explore the world.”
Google Maps also is trying to address complaints by introducing more detailed imagery that will make it easier to see which lane of the road to be situated in well ahead of having to make a turn.
In another AI twist, Google Maps is going to allow outside developers to tap into the language models underlying its Gemini technology to enable pose questions about specific destinations, such as apartments or restaurants, and get their queries answered within seconds. Google says this new feature, which initially will go through a testing phase, has undergone a fact-checking procedure that it calls “grounding.”
Google's Waze maps, which focus exclusively on real-time driving directions, will use AI to offer a conversational way for its roughly 180 million monthly users to announce hazards in the road and other problems that could affect traveling times.
The decision to bring AI into a service that so many rely upon to get from one point to the next reflects Google's growing confidence in its ability to prevent its Gemini technology from providing false or misleading information, also known as “hallucinations,” to users. Google's AI has already been caught hallucinating in some of the summaries that began rolling in May, including advice to put glue on pizza and an assertion that the fourth U.S. president, James Madison, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, located in a city named after him.
A 500-pound camera Google used to begin photographing the streets included in its digital maps during tests is displayed at Google's "Street View Garage" in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke)
One of the cars that Google uses to periodically to photograph the millions of destinations covered in its digital maps is shown during a pit stop at its "Street View Garage" in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is feeling the downside of high expectations on Thursday, as Microsoft and Meta Platforms lead U.S. stock indexes lower despite delivering stronger-than-expected profits for the summer.
The S&P 500 was down 0.8% in early trading and slipping further from its record set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 177 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:36 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower and on track for a second straight loss after setting its latest all-time high.
Microsoft reported bigger profit growth for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its revenue also topped forecasts, but its stock nevertheless sank 4.9% as investors and analysts scrutinized for possible disappointments. Many centered on Microsoft’s forecast for growth this quarter in its Azure cloud-computing business, which fell short of some analysts’ expectations.
The parent company of Facebook, meanwhile, likewise served up a better-than-expected profit report. For it, investors focused on Meta Platforms’ warning that it expects a “significant acceleration” in spending next year as it continues to pour money into developing artificial intelligence. It slipped 0.7%.
Both Microsoft and Meta Platforms have soared in recent years, in large part on excitement around AI, and are entrenched among Wall Street’s most influential stocks. But such stellar performances also have critics saying their stock prices have simply climbed too fast, leaving them too expensive.
It’s difficult to meet everyone’s expectations when they’re very high, and Microsoft was Thursday’s heaviest weight on the S&P 500 by far.
The next two companies in the highly influential group of stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” to deliver their latest results are Apple and Amazon. They’re set to report after trading ends for the day, and both were also slipping. Earlier, Tesla and Alphabet kicked off the Magnificent Seven’s reports with results that investors found impressive enough to reward with higher stock prices.
In the bond market, Treasury yields continued their climb following a mixed set of reports on the U.S. economy.
One report said a measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve likes to use slowed to 2.1% in September from 2.3%. That’s almost all the way back to the Fed’s 2% target, but underlying trends after ignoring food and energy costs were a touch hotter than economists expected.
A separate report said growth in workers’ wages and benefits slowed during the summer. That could put less pressure on upcoming inflation. A third report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. That’s an indication that the number of layoffs remains relatively low across the country.
Treasury yields swiveled up and down several times following the reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was most recently sitting at 4.30%, where it was late Wednesday. That’s up sharply from the roughly 3.60% level it hit last month.
Yields have been rallying following a string of stronger-than-expected reports on the U.S. economy. Such data have bolstered hopes that the economy can avoid a recession, particularly now that the Fed is cutting interest rates to support the job market instead of keeping them high to quash high inflation. But the resilient economy also is forcing traders to curtail their expectations for how deeply the Fed will ultimately cut.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were lower across much of Europe and Asia.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
A sign marking the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York's Financial District is shown on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
FILE - A person walks in front of the Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Tokyo, on Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
FILE - A person stands near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
