Maps: places and routes
A chat with a map beside it: ask for places, hours, routes and street-level photos, save a plan and take it with you.
Updated October 2026Maps1 of 1
Short answer
Start a map chat
- Step 1
Open Maps
Pick Maps in the sidebar, press Explore map in a chat composer, or use the start card on the home page. The map never opens on the whole world: your known position centers it at street level, otherwise a region guessed from your browser's time zone or language. - Step 2
Ask in words
Where should we have dinner near the station? A hotel with parking for Friday? Plan a day around the old town? The answer lists places with a pin for each, numbered to match. - Step 3
Keep going
Every map chat is a normal conversation: it appears in your history and search, and reopens at /maps/<id>; opening it from a plain chat link redirects you back to the map.
On a phone the conversation is a sheet over the map that you expand and collapse; the Akili app has the same map screen.
Search and filters
The chips above the map steer the next search: a category (restaurant, cafe, bar, hotel, park, attraction, shop and other), a radius from 100 m to 20 km in your distance unit, Near me once you have shared your location, and Search this area, which re-sends your last question for the part of the map you are looking at. They are hints for the model, not filters on the results already listed. Each result shows its distance and walking time from the map's anchor and its category; a result without ratings says so rather than inventing them.
Place details and opening hours
Select a pin or a result for its details: address, website, phone, the category, and the opening hours. Hours are evaluated on the place's own clock: Open now or Closed now in local time, with your own time shown beside it when you are in another zone. View on OpenStreetMap and the Overture license link sit under every place.
Routes
Ask for a route and it is drawn on the map with its distance and an honest estimated duration: walking, driving or cycling, through up to eight stops. Where the routing server does not serve a mode (the default public server knows cars only), the duration is estimated from the distance at an average walking pace and marked as an estimate. A route stays on the map for the conversation; if it has expired, Ask again re-sends the same question.
Street view and 3D
The map view switch offers Map, 3D and Street view. Street view shows the closest street-level photo from Mapillary contributors within 60 m of the place, with its distance and date, widening to 150 m and 400 m before it gives up; photos load only when you open the panel. The map itself is Mapbox Standard on a public deployment or self-hosted tiles where the organization chose that; zoom, compass reset and center-on-me controls sit in the corner.
Your location and units
On your first visit an in-app dialog asks before the browser does: Use my current location, start from a typed city, address or landmark, or Not now to keep the region view for this session. If the browser has location blocked, the dialog says so and offers the typed start. The header chip shows where the map is anchored and reopens the dialog. Your position travels with your messages for the session and is never saved.
Distances show in miles by default; switch to kilometres under Settings → Preferences → Distance units. The radius chips follow the unit.
Save and export a plan
Save to plan on a place's details adds it to the chat's plan, up to 50 places. The plan panel lists them, removes them, exports the set as GeoJSON or GPX for a phone or a GPS app, and Make an itinerary deck opens the plan in Studio as a presentation. Saving needs a message in the chat first, and follows the chat's visibility.
Credits and policies
Searching and reading place details are always free. Geocoding and routing are charged per call only where the operator has set a price (the default is zero); a call you cannot afford answers insufficient credits before any provider is contacted, and the charge is recorded in the credit ledger like a generation. A platform operator can also turn the places tools off for the whole deployment, in which case Maps answers that search is unavailable.
Organization policies
| Policy | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Maps enabled | On | Off: the sidebar entry disappears, /maps answers not found, and a maps-mode turn runs without the places tools. |
| Location sharing | Ask | Off: Near me is not offered and any position a device sends is dropped. |
| Tile host | Public | Self: tiles come from your own host, with no third-party egress. |
Good to know
- Agents can use places too. Give an agent the places capability and it searches and routes inside its own chats; see Agents.
- A map in a plain chat. Asking an agent with places about a location returns a map part inside the normal conversation; Maps mode is the full-screen version with the plan and filters.
- Tiles that will not load. The map says when tiles cannot be fetched or are not configured and offers a reload; the chat still works.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the places come from?
From the platform's own place index, built from OpenStreetMap and Overture data, with license links on each result. Routes come from an OSRM server (or Mapbox Directions where the operator configured it), and street-level photos from Mapillary contributors.
Does Akili store my location?
No. When you allow it, your position is sent with your messages for this session only; it is never saved to your account. Declining keeps the region view, and you can start from a typed city, address or landmark instead.
Why does the model not filter by rating or open now?
The filter chips (category, radius, Near me, Search this area) are hints the model uses for the next search, not filters on results already shown. Opening hours appear on each place's details, so ask in words: open now, near the station, under a ten-minute walk.
Can I plan a multi-day trip?
Save up to 50 places to the chat's plan, ask for routes between them (up to eight stops each), then export the plan as GeoJSON or GPX for your phone, or press Make an itinerary deck to turn it into a Studio presentation.
Why is Street view greyed out?
Street view needs a Mapillary token on the deployment; without one the button says so. With a token, it shows the closest photo within 60 m of the place and says when there is none.