Google Maps Lets Filmmakers Scout Movie Scenes Using AI and Street View Data

Hollywood location scouts could quickly be capable to do extra of their work from a laptop computer, because of synthetic intelligence.

Introduced throughout Google Cloud Subsequent on Wednesday, Google unveiled Maps Imagery Grounding. This new AI-powered instrument lets filmmakers and inventive businesses generate pictures and animated scenes based mostly on real-world areas utilizing Google Avenue View information, probably chopping the time and price of early-stage location scouting and storyboarding.

“Generative AI has unlocked highly effective methods for inventive businesses, movie studios, and luxurious manufacturers to carry social and promoting campaigns to life,” Google mentioned in an announcement. “Now, we’re serving to them anchor their imaginative scenes in the true world with Maps Imagery Grounding.”

The function, accessible in non-public preview within the U.S. by way of Google Maps, lets customers kind prompts into Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform to generate AI visuals tied to real-world areas. Customers can even animate these scenes utilizing Google’s AI video mannequin Veo.



The announcement comes as movie studios look to chop prices and streamline pre-production, which frequently entails sending scouts to {photograph} units, ready for the fitting climate or lighting, and creating visible mockups. Google additionally mentioned at Cloud Subsequent that it’s launching AI instruments for analyzing aerial and satellite tv for pc imagery, together with new Earth AI fashions designed to establish roads, bridges, and energy strains.

“These AI updates unlock completely new prospects for companies, information analysts, and concrete planners,” Google mentioned. “Whether or not you’re visualizing a inventive idea, planning out a brand new improvement, or managing catastrophe response, our new imagery instruments will help you’re employed smarter and sooner.”

The launch displays a broader sample in AI and mapping know-how as instruments constructed for one goal discover new industrial makes use of. In March, Niantic’s spatial AI mapping know-how, constructed partially from non-compulsory scans submitted by Pokémon Go gamers, was revealed to now assist autonomous supply robots navigate cities in locations the place GPS struggles.

Regardless of concessions received throughout the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes over the usage of AI in movie and tv manufacturing, tensions in Hollywood have continued to simmer.

In June 2024, actor Ashton Kutcher confronted backlash on-line after he praised OpenAI’s then-new Sora video mannequin, saying it may cut back the necessity for expensive on-location shoots and stunt work. Regardless of the reward, OpenAI discontinued Sora this March, underscoring how some early hype round AI-generated filmmaking has but to materialize.

Final September, SAG-AFTRA condemned the AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood as a menace to jobs and human artistry after the union’s 2023 strike secured protections in opposition to artificial performers. Final week, “Sensible Magic 2” star Sandra Bullock mentioned Hollywood has to “lean into” AI and use it constructively, whereas Warner Bros. Photos Co-Chair Pam Abdy mentioned it ought to assist filmmakers make films higher.

“Now we have to acknowledge it, now we have to know it, and now we have to have a look at it,” she advised Selection. “I feel now we have to have a look at it as a instrument, and on the manufacturing aspect as a instrument. How is it going for use to assist us make films higher for the filmmakers? It must be a instrument for the storytellers.”

Google didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark by Decrypt.