Google Maps Gets an AI Agent for Ordering Food and Booking Hotels
In rather unsurprising news, Google has added new AI-driven functionality to Google Maps; this time, it’s an agentic assistant for Ask Maps, allowing users to order food or find and book hotels.
With the new agentic food-ordering capabilities, users can open Ask Maps in Google Maps and ask a question like, “Where can I order vegan avocado toast and an oat milk latte near home?” The tool will then surface nearby restaurants that have what they’re looking for.
After selecting a restaurant, users can tap the “Order online” option to place an order through supported platforms such as Square, Toast, or Uber Eats. Ask Maps will add the items to a cart. Users can choose to add more items to their cart, then pay for the order on the supported platform.
This might be a really bad example, or I’m just old-fashioned, but who uses Google Maps for these things? I’m sure most people have one or two favourite coffee shops in their neighbourhood so they know where to get their latte. Do coffee shops even do deliveries? And ordering avocado toast? Who looks forward to brownish avocado on soggy toast after it’s been roaming around for thirty minutes because the driver first has to drop two McDonald’s breakfasts five blocks away?
Additionally, users can use Ask Maps to find a hotel for their next trip by entering a query like, “For next weekend’s conference in downtown Miami, find me a decently priced, top-rated hotel with an artsy vibe within walking distance from a gym and restaurants.” Ask Maps will then compare prices and check availability before providing a list of options. Once users find an option they like, they can click through to the partner’s website to book the stay.
A more relatable use case, but does it actually make finding and booking a hotel easier? A real selling point would be an agent that finds and books the hotel mostly autonomously. The example process isn’t that much simpler than starting with “hotels in downtown Miami.” Sure, it narrows the search by vibe and proximity to amenities, but I still have to sift through results, weed out promoted content, and book the hotel myself.
I’m struggling to see the appeal of replacing working functionality with AI agents, especially when there are no clear benefits. But it’s the industry’s current imperative, useful or not.