Google has reintroduced its AI-driven "Ask Photos" feature in Google Photos after addressing concerns about its performance. Initially launched at last year's Google I/O developer conference, the feature enables users to search their digital photo collections using natural language queries. Ask Photos leverages Google's Gemini AI to analyze a photo's content and metadata when responding to user inputs.

However, users reported that the AI feature was unreliable and slow to respond while processing queries. In response, Google Photos product manager Jamie Aspinall acknowledged in June that "Ask Photos isn't where it needs to be, in terms of latency, quality and UX." The company temporarily paused the rollout for a few weeks to improve the "speed and recall of the original search."

In a recent blog post, Google announced that it has integrated the best aspects of Photos' classic search feature into Ask Photos, particularly for simple searches like "beach" or "dogs." This enhancement allows search results to display more quickly, similar to the classic search function.

While the AI works in the background to identify the most relevant photos and respond to more complex queries, users can still switch to the classic search interface if they prefer. For example, when searching for a "white dog," initial search results appear immediately. Once the AI finishes its analysis, its results will be displayed below, accompanied by introductory text that may identify the dog by name if added and indicate when photos of the animal first appeared.

Eligibility for using Ask Photos requires users to be 18 years or older, have their account language set to English, and enable Face Groups, the feature that labels people and pets found in the Google Photos library. As a result of these improvements, Google has resumed the rollout of Ask Photos to more users across the U.S.