Google announced a series of upgrades to its Google Photos service, used by more than a billion users, at today's Google I/O developer event, which was virtually streamed this year due to COVID. The company is rolling out Locked Folders, new types of photo "Memories" for reminiscing over past events, as well as a new feature called "Cinematic moments" that will animate a series of static photos, among other updates. Today, Google Photos stores over 4 trillion photos and videos, but the majority of those are never viewed. To change that, Google has been developing AI-powered features to help its users reflect on meaningful moments from their lives. With Memories, launched in 2019, Google Photos is able to resurface photos and videos focused on people, activities and hobbies as well as recent highlights from the week prior.

Google Photos is getting a suite of updates this year leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, with a focus on the Memories feature. Most notably, Google is giving users more control over the pics that appear in Memories, which are automatically selected and sorted using machine learning. Starting today, users will be able to rename or remove Trip highlights altogether. Rolling out soon, users will have the power to remove a single photo from a Memory, remove Best of Month Memories, and rename or remove specific Memories. And later this summer, Google will make existing controls to hide photos of certain time periods or people easier to use.