Google Maps is improving travel ETAs with DeepMind AI

Google Maps helps users navigate over one billion kilometers in more than 200 countries and territories daily, and Google says its estimated time of arrival (ETA) predictions have been consistently accurate for over 97 percent of trips. That's not good enough for Google, though, so the company partnered with DeepMind to use machine learning to make its ETAs even more accurate. Before partnering with DeepMind, an Alphabet AI research lab, Google Maps used a combination of historical traffic patterns and live traffic conditions to understand current traffic patterns. The partners wanted to be able to predict future traffic patterns, so DeepMind developed a graphic neural network, which also considers data on the time of year, road quality, speed limits, accidents and closures. Thanks to that machine learning approach, Google Maps has improved the accuracy of real-time ETAs by up to 50 percent in places like Berlin, Jakarta, São Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington D.C. Now, Google Maps can warn users about traffic jams before they exist.