Now Google Maps can see inside buildings thanks to AI

2022-05-13T12:06:00-04:00

Google launched a new mode for Maps on Wednesday, designed to give users a more real-life look at the places they’re going before they even go. The new Immersive View is sort of a Street View in the sky: you can look over a location from above to get a sense of the neighborhood and then drop to street level to see the specific spots you might want to hit up.

The feature was revealed at Google’s I/O 2022 Keynote address in which CEO Sundar Pichai also introduced a new flood forecasting feature and expanded capabilities of the 15-year-old Maps project made possible through advancements in AI technology. Pichai says the company now has 1.6 billion buildings and over 60 million kilometers of road to date as part of the project.

The Immersive View feature will now allow the interiors of a good portion of them to be seen using a machine learning technique called neural rendering. Pichai used London's Westminster area as an example and said the feature is useful in providing pedestrian and vehicle congestion information to users in real-time.

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Now Google Maps can see inside buildings thanks to AI