In brief
- Google unveiled the AI-powered Maps Imagery Grounding on Wednesday at Cloud Next.
- The tool lets filmmakers generate AI visuals based on real-world Street View locations.
- Hollywood remains divided over AI’s role in filmmaking.
Hollywood location scouts may soon be able to do more of their work from a laptop, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Announced during Google Cloud Next on Wednesday, Google unveiled Maps Imagery Grounding. This new AI-powered tool lets filmmakers and creative agencies generate images and animated scenes based on real-world locations using Google Street View data, potentially cutting the time and cost of early-stage location scouting and storyboarding.
“Generative AI has unlocked powerful ways for creative agencies, film studios, and luxury brands to bring social and advertising campaigns to life,” Google said in a statement. “Now, we're helping them anchor their imaginative scenes in the real world with Maps Imagery Grounding.”
The feature, available in private preview in the U.S. through Google Maps, lets users type prompts into Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform to generate AI visuals tied to real-world locations. Users can also animate those scenes using Google’s AI video model Veo.
The announcement comes as film studios look to cut costs and streamline pre-production, which often involves sending scouts to photograph sets, waiting for the right weather or lighting, and creating visual mockups. Google also said at Cloud Next that it is launching AI tools for analyzing aerial and satellite imagery, along with new Earth AI models designed to identify roads, bridges, and power lines.
“These AI updates unlock entirely new possibilities for businesses, data analysts, and urban planners,” Google said. “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.”
The launch reflects a broader pattern in AI and mapping technology as tools built for one purpose find new commercial uses. In March, Niantic’s spatial AI mapping technology, built in part from optional scans submitted by Pokémon Go players, was revealed to now help autonomous delivery robots navigate cities in places where GPS struggles.
Despite concessions won during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes over the use of AI in film and television production, tensions in Hollywood have continued to simmer.
In June 2024, actor Ashton Kutcher faced backlash online after he praised OpenAI’s then-new Sora video model, saying it could reduce the need for costly on-location shoots and stunt work. Despite the praise, OpenAI discontinued Sora this March, underscoring how some early hype around AI-generated filmmaking has yet to materialize.
Last September, SAG-AFTRA condemned the AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood as a threat to jobs and human artistry after the union’s 2023 strike secured protections against synthetic performers. Last week, “Practical Magic 2” star Sandra Bullock said Hollywood has to “lean into” AI and use it constructively, while Warner Bros. Pictures Co-Chair Pam Abdy said it should help filmmakers make movies better.
“We have to acknowledge it, we have to understand it, and we have to look at it,” she told Variety. “I think we have to look at it as a tool, and on the production side as a tool. How is it going to be used to help us make movies better for the filmmakers? It has to be a tool for the storytellers.”
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.