I tried Google Photos' AI search and it was surprisingly bad – 3 ways to fix it

One practical use case for AI natural language processing is being able to search your photos with the ease of a conversational prompt. As a result, Google unveiled a feature called Ask Photos last year and started rolling out early access to users via Google Labs in September. The feature finally rolled out to me — and the results were surprising. 

I was excited to try it out for myself. Even though I am a long-time iPhone user, I’ve used Google Photos for about a decade for the additional photo storage and the impressive search interface. Even though the classic search experience isn’t marketed as an AI feature, it has always been super efficient and better than those found on alternatives like Apple Photos. 

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With the classic search in Google Photos, I could search terms like “cake,” “hot dog,” “red dress,” or “beach trip,” and it would filter through my many photos and find the results instantaneously. With Google Photos already setting such a high bar, I expected the AI-enhanced Ask Photos to exceed my expectations.

It did not. However, the feature has promise, and here are some ways Google can improve it. (I also include some tips on getting the most out of Ask Photos today.)

1. Differentiate it from the classic search experience 

To get started, in Ask Photos I searched “photos of me as a baby” and was met with the message, “I didn’t find any photos of you as a baby, but I might have missed them!” 

However, when I typed in the search “baby photos,” much like the classic search, it was able to show me all the pictures of babies in my library, which included the ones of me I was looking for. 

Even though I was able to pull up the photos I wanted, to get there, I had to search the same key term I regularly do in classic search.  The result was I wasted my time trying to use conversational terms rather than thinking of a keyword that populates what I was looking for.

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In another example, I looked up, “Me in a red dress.” After a couple of seconds of loading, I was met with “I can’t seem to find a picture of you in a red dress as a baby,” failing to recognize that this was an entirely unrelated query, in itself an annoying quirk. Even once it realized what I meant, it showed me pictures of anyone in my camera roll with a red dress. 

When I typed red dress into the classic search, I was met — almost instantaneously — with a ton of results of red dresses throughout the years, with the ones of me prioritized at the top. To make Ask Photos truly worth it for users, it would need to provide a significant upgrade, which, at the moment, it is not. 

2. Make Ask Photos significantly faster 

Don’t let my first point dissuade you entirely from using Ask Photos. In some cases, it was actually helpful. For example, when I asked it to show my pictures of a Corgi, it pulled up all the pictures in my library of the dog and even told me his name and a bit about his activities. Similarly, when I asked it to show me pictures of the food I cooked, it brought up many homemade meals I’d made over the years. However, one issue remains even when Ask Photos displays the intended results — speed. 

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Ask Photos lags a couple of seconds, even when populating the same results as a classic search in response to a simple query. A few seconds isn’t a long time, of course. But when compared to classic search results, which are nearly instantaneous, a few seconds can feel like a lifetime. I think Ask Photos’ speed goal should look toward something like the Gemini chatbot, which populates results much more quickly. 

3. Expand the ‘beyond search’ offerings

When the Ask Photos feature was launched, one of the selling points was being able to use it beyond search, for example, to create a highlight of special moments from your camera roll using a conversational prompt. Although this is a cute feature, and it worked when put to the test, it doesn’t seem like a significant enough win to convert users to Ask Photos. 

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I think Google has many opportunities to leverage its other AI offerings to build more unique experiences. Perhaps a user could use the Ask Photos feature to ask Gemini to remove an element from the background, insert a new element, add a filter, etc. Most people probably will not have an everyday application for creating a video montage, but saving time editing a photo seems more practical. 

How to access 

Ask Photos is still an experimental feature, so to get access you have to join the waitlist. You can join the waitlist by going to the Google Photos page, scrolling down to the Ask Photos section, entering your Gmail address, and clicking the “Join the waitlist” button.

How to un-access

If you prefer the classic search, you can either temporarily revert back by clicking “Switch to classic search” on the Ask page. If you want to shut it off temporarily, you can click on your profile picture in the upper right hand corner, Google Photos settings, Preferences, and Gemini features in Google Photos. Then toggle off the “Search with Ask Photos” feature.