Google has temporarily paused the rollout of its "Ask Photos" feature in the Google Photos app—a search tool powered by the Gemini AI model—according to a report by The Verge.
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Originally announced at last year’s I/O conference, the feature allows users to search for photos using natural language queries like “me and Alice laughing” or “Emma drawing in the backyard,” instead of relying on traditional keywords. Although Google began rolling out the feature to a limited group of Android and iOS users last September, it has now been partially suspended to address performance issues.
“Ask Photos is not quite where we want it to be in terms of speed, result quality, or overall user experience,” wrote Jamie Aspinall, Product Manager at Google Photos, on X (formerly Twitter). “So, we’ve temporarily paused the rollout for a very limited number of users while we work on improvements.”
His remarks follow user complaints that the new AI search was slower than the traditional method and lacked clear advantages. In response, Aspinall stated that an improved version of the feature is expected to be released within the next two weeks, promising faster and more accurate search results.
Google's Ongoing AI Feature Struggles
This isn’t the first time Google has had to pause an AI-related feature. Last year, the company temporarily disabled its AI Overviews feature after it returned inaccurate—and at times bizarre—answers. Google also suspended image generation capabilities in Gemini after historically inaccurate outputs were reported.
Coinciding with the pause, Google announced a separate new feature to enhance search functionality in Google Photos. Users can now place words in quotation marks to perform exact-match searches in image text, file names, camera models, or captions.
