Google Photos could get an AI boost to turn your memories into narrated stories

Google Photos is one of our favourite services from Google, not only offering cloud backup of images on your Android (or Apple) phone, but being one of the places where Google puts its AI to good use. And there could be more coming from AI in Google Photos, to make the memories experience better.

Google Photos is many things: it's an easy method to back up your images, it's great for searching photos, while it's also the home to Google's powerful AI-powered editing tools like Magic Editor. There's also a section of Google Photos that's focused on memories, pulling together images and presenting them to you so you're not just scrolling through all your holiday snaps.

Currently, Google likes to arrange these memories around location or date, but there's also the option to create your own really easily, around anything you did. It's a great way to group photos, with Google selecting the highlights and presenting them with a Ken Burns effect so you're not just looking at static photos.

Now, according to some details unearthed by Android Authority, memories in Google Photos could be getting a boost, with Gemini coming in to provide narration. There are bits of code that have been discovered in Google Photos that suggest you'll be able to have "Gemini-powered memories", and "Get recap memories narrated by Gemini".

Exactly what format this will appear in is not yet known. You can already have AI-powered titling of memories and Google will add information like the location, but it's hard to guess exactly what form this narration will take. Will it be descriptive based on the contents of the photo, will it take into account the sequence of events that lead to these images – or will it try to inject some sort of humour?

It also looks like you'll be able to turn it off thanks to a toggle switch in the menus, but at the moment, it's unclear if or when this feature might be coming to Google Photos.

What is Google Gemini?

Gemini is the name that Google has given to its AI. On Android phones, this is now replacing Google Assistant, while Gemini is also accessible through a browser and able to tap into Google's AI language model.

Gemini has access to lots of information and can relay this is a human-like way, making it great to get a quick summary of information.

It is spreading through Google products, basically giving you an interactive experience across a decently-sized range. That might be a summary of your Gmail, to extract details from Google Docs or Sheets – or a full conversation on your phone thanks to Gemini Live.