From planning infrastructure to assessing natural disasters, businesses and urban planners rely on Google's mapping tools to understand the real world. Today at Cloud Next, we’re introducing three AI updates to our imagery products—including new Google Earth AI tools—to help these organizations visualize and analyze information faster than ever before.
Create generative media grounded in Street View
Generative AI has unlocked powerful ways for creative agencies, film studios and luxury brands to bring social and advertising campaigns to life. Now, we're helping them anchor their imaginative scenes in the real world with Maps Imagery Grounding. Available in Private Preview for places in the U.S., this new tool lets businesses generate stunning AI visuals grounded in the real-world details of Google Street View.
For example, finding the perfect place to film a movie scene can require managing complex logistics and early-stage scouting, waiting for the right weather and taking hundreds of reference photos. With Maps Imagery Grounding, a film studio can use a laptop to quickly visualize a scene at a specific place, like Washington Square Park in New York City—before scouts ever set foot on set. It’s easy to use: just type a prompt like “generate an image of a futuristic spaceship hovering in front of the Washington Square Arch” into the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and enable grounding with Google Maps Imagery in settings. In seconds, you can storyboard your creative vision with an accurate image—and you can even use Veo to animate the scene.
For example, WPP is currently testing Maps Imagery Grounding capabilities to create immersive advertisements for its clients, all based on real-world information from Street View.
With Maps Imagery Grounding, a film studio can instantly visualize a movie scene at a real-world location, like the Washington Square Arch in New York City. (Results for illustrative purposes and may vary.)
Unlock new insights from aerial and satellite imagery
We’re also making it easier to analyze the world from above. Today, data analysts and urban planners manually review thousands of satellite images to better understand changes across landscapes and cities. To help them tackle this challenge more easily, in the coming weeks we're adding new Aerial and Satellite Insights to Google Earth AI, our collection of geospatial models and datasets.
Now, users can automatically analyze this imagery in Google Cloud’s BigQuery – shrinking weeks of work spent manually reviewing images down to just minutes. For example, a city will be able to use the datasets to monitor where active construction sites are in residential areas, letting planners accurately allocate resources for new roads and electric lines.
With Aerial and Satellite Insights, businesses can quickly extract helpful information from imagery, like new construction sites.
Get faster imagery insights with Earth AI
Beyond new datasets, we’re also introducing two new Earth AI Imagery models, now available in Experimental in Google Cloud’s Model Garden. These models are trained to identify specific objects in imagery– like bridges, roads and power lines–which means businesses no longer need to spend months training and building AI from scratch when developing their own products.
For example, following a severe storm, recovery teams need a clear picture of the damage to help communities rebuild. Vantor, a leading spatial intelligence company, uses these models in its Sentry app to turn raw satellite imagery into actionable insights—helping organizations quickly spot washed-out roads, clear debris and prioritize long-term repairs.
Vantor’s Sentry application uses Earth AI imagery models to turn raw imagery into actionable insights - identifying scenes like damaged infrastructure.
These AI updates unlock entirely new possibilities for businesses, data analysts and urban planners. Whether you’re visualizing a creative concept, planning out a new development or managing disaster response, our new imagery tools can help you work smarter and faster.
Sign up for early access to our geospatial analytics products and apply for access to our Maps Imagery Grounding Private Preview.
