Google Ask Maps Sent User to 5-Star Closed Restaurant, Masking Stale Listings

2 articles · Updated · Android Police · Jul 20

A two-week test of Google’s Ask Maps ended with a 9 p.m. trip to a restaurant that had been closed for months, even though the listing still showed nearly five stars and marked it open.
Google says Ask Maps uses Gemini across more than 300 million places and 500 million reviews, but the miss stemmed from old Maps data rather than the AI reading it incorrectly.
The interface made the error easier to miss: instead of scanning multiple listings, the user got a polished recommendation that hid signals like outdated review dates and stale photos.
As a workaround, asking Ask Maps to exclude places without recent reviews restored that missing verification step, and the user said no bad suggestions have surfaced since early July.
The episode suggests conversational Google tools can feel more certain than their underlying data, making quick manual checks still necessary even when recommendations are usually accurate.