Google Photos Gets New Attempt at Fixing Its Frustrating Search

Google Photos first saw its AI-powered “Ask Photos” search feature arrive at the end of 2024. As you likely know, that rollout was paused pretty quickly because of its shortcomings. Google eventually resumed rolling it back out and has continued to try and improve it after listening to feedback, which has most definitely not been the most positive.

This week, Google Photos VP Shimrit Ben-Yair took to Twitter to acknowledge that Google are “committed to getting this experience right” when it comes to Google Photos and its AI search features. They continued by showcasing a change to search that will allow you to toggle between Classic Search and Ask Photos results. From the image they shared, this doesn’t necessarily look like a change to the function of searching, only the results.

You can see this change above, where a toggle sits to the top left corner under your search heading. When toggled off, you will see only Classic Search results, while a toggle to “ON” brings in more AI results and a description to match. Again, this is simply a toggle for results, not the search function itself.

What I’m saying here is that Google Photos search is likely to remain slow and clunky when Ask Photos is enabled. To default to Classic Search at the point of searching, you would still have to turn off Ask Photos within Photos settings. We have instructions on how to do that here.

In a bit of related news, Ben-Yair mentioned that they’ve improved quality for some of the most popular searches. You’ll have to let us know if your searches seem better.