Google adds generative AI to its mapping and geospatial tools

Google has unveiled a suite of generative AI features for its mapping and geospatial applications, targeting enterprise clients. Announced this week at Cloud Next—Google’s annual cloud computing conference—the updates mean Google Maps is about to receive new generative AI capabilities, giving the platform enhanced visual and data analytics powers.

One of the new features is Maps Imagery Grounding, which allows enterprise users to use generative AI to create realistic scenes within Google Street View. By typing a prompt into the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, users can visualize how a particular project—such as a planned construction site or a movie set—might look, provided the proper settings are enabled within Google Maps Imagery. According to a company press release, “In seconds, you can storyboard your creative vision with an accurate image — and you can even use Veo to animate the scene.”

For analytical workflows, Google is expanding how users interact with satellite imagery in Google Earth. The company introduced Aerial and Satellite Insights, which allows users to analyze imagery stored in BigQuery, the data warehouse and analytics platform hosted on Google Cloud. Google claims this feature significantly accelerates data analysis workflows:

• Data analysis time: The new feature reportedly shrinks weeks of work into minutes of labor.
• Model training time: Google is also launching two new Earth AI Imagery models designed to identify specific objects in imagery, such as roads, bridges, and power lines. Previously, businesses had to spend months training and building AI systems from scratch to perform these tasks. The new models mean businesses no longer need to spend months training and building AI from scratch when developing their own products.

These updates expand Google’s broader enterprise geospatial ecosystem. The underlying Earth AI platform is already being used by partners including aerospace company Airbus and medical institution Boston Children’s Hospital for applications ranging from environmental monitoring to disaster response. The company stated in its release that these updates unlock entirely new possibilities for businesses, data analysts, and urban planners.

Why it matters

These tools shift geospatial analysis from a manual, months-long process to an automated, minutes-long workflow, significantly lowering the barrier for enterprises to leverage satellite and mapping data.