Google Pauses the Rollout of Experimental “Ask Photos” Feature

Google has quietly paused the rollout of Ask Photos, a new way to search for pictures in Google Photos powered by the company’s Gemini AI. The experimental feature was announced during Google’s I/O developer conference last year, but the company acknowledged that it still needs some work.

Jamie Aspinall, a product manager for Google Photos, explained on X yesterday (via The Verge) that the rollout of Ask Photos had to be paused as the team is working on an improved version. Aspinall did so in a reply to a post pointing out that the regular search experience in Google Photos was faster.

“Ask Photos isn’t where it needs to be, in terms of latency, quality and UX, the Google Photos Product Manager said. “Rollout has been paused at very small numbers while we address these issues. In ~2 weeks we’ll ship an improved version that brings back the speed and recall of the original search.”

I hear you both. Ask Photos isn't where it needs to be, in terms of latency, quality and ux. Rollout has been paused at very small numbers while we address these issues. In ~2 weeks we'll ship an improved version that brings back the speed and recall of the original search

— Jamieasp (@jamieasp) June 3, 2025

With Ask Photos, Google has been testing a conversational search experience that leverages the latest Gemini models to understand the context of your photo gallery. The goal is to let users find photos by describing what’s in them or the context in which they were taken. Ask Photos has also been designed to identify the most important people in your life as well as your personal interests, all while guaranteeing your privacy.

Ask Photos launched in early access back in September 2024 alongside an improved search experience in Google Photos. The latter lets users try more descriptive queries and sort their search results by date or relevance.

Yesterday, Google announced that this improved search experience (again, not related to Ask Photos) now supports using quotes to find specific words in images. “When you put your search term in quotation marks, you’ll find exact text matches in filenames, camera models, captions, or text within photos. Without quotation marks, the results will include not just text matches but also visual matches,” the company explained.