New Waze feature will help keep your eyes on the road

Waze, a popular Google-owned navigation app for Android and iPhone, has finally begun the rollout of its Conversational Reporting feature. This new utility, which the company first announced back in October of last year, allows users to report traffic, potholes, construction detours, weather events, and other hazardous road conditions using voice commands.

Helping out with natural language processing is Google’s Gemini AI system, which should make it possible to describe your surroundings without the need to use overly robotic or formulaic language patterns.

“With the help of Gemini capabilities, Waze will understand what you’re saying and quickly add a real-time report to the map for you — no need to use a specific voice command or tap extra buttons, wrote Gai Berkovich, General Manager at Waze in a blog post last year.

The rollout of Conversational Reporting for Waze is reportedly occurring now across both iOS and Android versions of the app (via 9to5Google), though the company hasn’t made any official statement to confirm or expand on details pertaining to the release of the new feature. It’s also unclear which version of Gemini is actually powering the feature, or whether AI processing is taking place on-device or via the cloud.

Waze is bringing Conversational Reporting to a virtual map near you

Report road conditions without having to ever take your eyes off the road

Conceptually, I’m a fan of Conversational Reporting. I’ve always valued Waze’s community-sourced network of up-to-date road conditions, and the ability to contribute to it in real time while actively on the road is a step in the right direction.

As we all know, the act of operating a motor vehicle requires a driver’s full and unwavering attention, which makes it impossible to safely and legally report on driving conditions while also maintaining eyes on the road ahead.

Conversational Reporting, then, makes expert use of Google’s Gemini AI to enable voice dictation within Waze. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see just how natural this new dictation system ends up being in the real world– performance will be a make-or-break factor in whether this feature ultimately sticks the landing.