Google took another step in incorporating AI into all its services, their latest attempt looks to be a Google Q&A enhancement. For those unaware, Google Q&A is a feature incorporated into all Google listings, one where a user can ask any question about the business and have it answered by the public or the listing owner. These are often used for hyper-specific queries such as if there is window seating or anything else that could not be ascertained at a glance. Many business owners also ask themselves questions and answer them, creating an FAQ right in their listing. Google Q&A has been a great feature for optimizing for very specific Google queries, and it now looks like Google is hoping to enhance this feature even further.

The new AI feature is titled “Ask Maps about this place”. This feature was announced in October of last year but has only recently become publicly visible. In trying to lose reliance on volunteered information from the public and the business owner, Google’s AI will attempt to scrub reviews, the business website, and other sources for any unique details it can find. Users will hopefully immediately be able to tell if a listing offers parking, if the restaurant was formerly a bank, or any other hyper-detailed information it can find.

It is proposed that this feature may replace Google Q&A entirely, but this recent AI Tool is too new to know if that would viable. Google’s AI Overview is already notoriously inaccurate, and this new feature may have similar issues. Only time will tell if “Ask Maps about this place” will work alongside Q&A, replace it, or the AI tool will be abandoned by Google instead.