Google Photos toggle to switch off Ask Photos rolling out

Google’s giving users a toggle to choose between the Gemini-powered Ask Photos and classic search in Google Photos. We saw the change in progress earlier this year, and now, Google’s confirmed that the toggle has started making its way to users.

Google Photos chief Shimrit Ben-Yair tweeted today that the toggle, rolling out now, will let users “choose between fast classic search and intelligent Ask Photos results.” The toggle appears in the upper left corner of the search results interface in the Google Photos app.

Ask Photos uses Gemini to facilitate more complex, natural-language searches inside Google Photos. You can use it to literally ask a question that your photo library could answer (one of Google’s early use case examples was “What’s my license plate number?”), or to search for very specific images (e.g., Ben-Yair’s tweet includes a screenshot of a search for “Emma’s first bike ride”).

Ask Photos is a more flexible option than standard search, but searching large photo libraries using the newer, AI-powered mode can take longer. The option to easily swap back to the quicker, less detailed classic search modality is a nice improvement for people who don’t need or want everything Ask Photos can do.

Ben-Yair says that Google is “starting to roll out” the change as of this afternoon, so while we don’t know exactly when to expect the toggle on our own devices (I’m not seeing it yet), it could be showing up any time now.