Google Maps’ Ask Maps feature, launched earlier this year as a Gemini chatbot for trip questions, is gaining agentic capabilities, including placing food orders, finding hotels, and providing personalized responses. Users can tap the Ask Maps button on the homepage and prompt it to order a meal for pickup, such as “order spicy pad kee mao with seafood for me to pick up on my way home,” and it will list restaurants, considering dietary preferences and saved places. After selecting a restaurant, Ask Maps automatically adds the preferred item to the cart for verification and completion. Food ordering is supported by Square and Toast at launch, with Uber Eats expected to follow soon. The feature also helps find hotels and local events, checking real-time prices and availability. With Personal Intelligence enabled, Ask Maps can access Gmail for hotel or flight bookings and provide itinerary-based recommendations; with Google activity history enabled, it remembers past conversations. Both are optional. Additionally, Ask Maps now provides real-time transit information, including a departure board with “up-to-the-minute delays” for bus, train, subway, or ferry rides. Users can also chat with the AI to update place information, which Google verifies before sharing. These updates roll out to users in the US starting today and will become available in other countries over time.