Google Photos adds generative AI to help name your photo collections

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The Share button is gone, making room for Memories. | Image: Google

Google is adding a new Memories tab to its Photos app to create a dedicated place for auto-generated collections of pictures. The company is adding new generative AI titling features that can help you name your photo collections, too.

These Google-generated collections have shown up at the top of the Photos app for years, but they’ll now have a dedicated button at the bottom of the app. Default titles for memories are often location-based names using images’ GPS metadata. The new AI titles feature helps to summarize the Instagram Stories-like style presentations with a bit more fun and detail.

GIF: Google

The new generative AI title maker.

When looking at a memory collection, you can select a new “help me title” button that uses generative AI to make up a name based on the image contents. And if the initial output isn’t what you’re looking for, you can add a “hint,” which is essentially prompting the bot to steer the title in the direction you’re looking for.

The new Memories view is rolling out today in the US and will be available worldwide “in the coming months.” Later, Google plans to have video export options for Memories so they can be easily shared through messaging and social media platforms. Apple’s Photos app already allows its generated “For You” and custom slideshows to output to video for sharing.

GIF: Google

Soon, you can share the Stories-like slideshows as a video to messaging apps like WhatsApp.

When it works right, generated photo memories from Google, Apple, Facebook, and others can jump you from family vacations to an amazing concert and get you longing to make more memories with loved ones. Other times, it can indiscriminately choose photos that don’t make sense, and it can bring up past moments in your life that you don’t want to relive.