I’ve been utilizing ChatGPT as a journey assistant for fairly some time now. I run marathons and use that excuse to go to new locations. I’m really capable of comfortably run a marathon race within the first place as a result of I enlisted ChatGPT’s assist. It’s all a part of my want to dwell more healthy, and working these races is simply the type of problem that helps me.
You want that context earlier than I inform you that I take advantage of ChatGPT to plan travels on a regular basis. I do it months prematurely of every journey. What ought to I go to after I’m there? Will it require a lot of strolling? The place ought to I keep? How good is the transit system? Are there any metropolis passes that cowl must-see sights and public transport? I’d often carry out quite a few searches to reply these questions. However now that ChatGPT is right here, I’ve it act as my journey assistant. I ask all kinds of questions, begin new chats, after which group associated chats in a folder so I can simply reference them.
ChatGPT has been getting higher over time. For instance, I used ChatGPT Deep Analysis to plan museum visits in Tokyo. As detailed as that report may need been, nevertheless, it missed a crucial piece of data: the map. OpenAI doesn’t have its personal mapping service, so it may well’t place these factors of curiosity on a map. I nonetheless used Google Maps to plan my days primarily based on the ChatGPT Deep Analysis report.
It seems that OpenAI may need quietly given ChatGPT an improve I’ve at all times wished. The AI can now present you maps itemizing the factors of curiosity being mentioned in a chat containing location-related information. The function is new, as ChatGPT knowledgeable me, but it surely doesn’t actually work all too reliably simply but.
The brand new maps function has nothing to do with the improved picture era options that OpenAI dropped at ChatGPT this week. The next screenshot comes from a current chat with the AI about Annecy, a metropolis in France.
At one level throughout my chat I requested about museums within the area, not anticipating the AI to point out me the map above. I requested the AI to provide me museums within the space, specializing in strolling distance first, and ChatGPT put them on the map for me.
That map is interactive. I can zoom out and in and click on on the saved places that ChatGPT marked. Every pin provides me transient details about that place of curiosity.
It’s like having Google Maps embedded in ChatGPT, solely it’s not Google Maps. On that notice, Google simply introduced Gemini Dwell chatting assist to Google Maps, a function ChatGPT can’t presumably replicate.
Again to my travel-assisting chat, I do not know what map service that’s. Based mostly on my expertise, it’s not Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Bing Maps.
After I requested the chatbot what the “map factor” was, ChatGPT stated it was a part of a “current replace the place, at any time when I retrieve location-based data utilizing the online device, it routinely generates a small visible map preview inside my response.”
That’s an extremely helpful function, because it provides me a direct concept of what to anticipate. Fairly than going to Google Maps for a visible illustration, I can see all of it in ChatGPT.
The chatbot stated the function is enabled when it supplies location-specific suggestions or makes use of the online device to seek out information that entails geographic places. Nice, once more!
The issue is that the brand new function doesn’t at all times work. I attempted to set off it once more in different chats and the identical chat, but it surely didn’t work. I’ll notice that it was GPT-4.5 displaying the map above.
The mannequin switched to GPT-4o, as you’ll be able to see within the screenshots above, as a result of I’ve reached the restrict for GPT-4.5 replies for this month. ChatGPT switched to GPT-4o for all chats, together with those I talked to the GPT-4.5 mannequin.
Later, I requested the AI the way it drew the map. Right here’s what ChatGPT responded:
I didn’t manually draw the map—the visible map you noticed earlier is an automated function offered by ChatGPT. After I use the online device to seek for or share location-specific data, the system routinely generates and inserts a small interactive map preview, usually pulled from Google Maps or Bing Maps.
However, once more, the map doesn’t appear like the present model of Google Maps or Bing Maps. Whereas ChatGPT’s explanations for inserting map information into location-related chats make sense, particularly if stated information is “seamlessly offered by ChatGPT to complement our dialog with interactive location context,” I can’t actually benefit from it. That’s as a result of I can’t inform ChatGPT to provide me a listing of sights for a spot and place them on a map. It doesn’t work that approach.
I do hope that OpenAI is certainly seeking to present location data immediately into chats. In spite of everything, we’re continuously searching for location data, and AI ought to assist that type of information. The issue right here is that OpenAI doesn’t have a Google Maps service of its personal.
On that notice, Google has a giant benefit over rivals because of the Gemini integration in Google Maps. I’d count on to see Google Maps information in Gemini chats sooner or later. When Apple is able to roll out a Siri chatbot, it’ll even have Apple Maps information for chats.
In the meantime, I’ll maintain attempting to make ChatGPT give me interactive maps in chats at any time when I give the AI travel-related prompts. Hopefully, the AI will present these maps extra typically than it does proper now.
