You may be familiar with Gemini as the thing that’s in every Google service you use – whether you want it or not. I let Gemini in Google Maps plan my day and it went surprisingly well. It never once told me to walk into a river.

Gemini had big shoes to fill: my own. I’m a Google Maps fiend, using it for normal stuff like getting around, but also, sometimes just scrolling for new discoveries. This time, Gemini charted me a path into less familiar territory with its first suggestions being very much in line with what I usually seek out.

Its initial recommendations were me-coded – a cafe next to a bookstore and a reliable coffee shop downtown. After some back-and-forth, we settled on tacos at Chukis, which I almost walked by but for Gemini’s guidance. Three excellent tacos later, it was time to head to my next stop.

Except I was ahead of schedule, so asked Gemini to find a unique shop nearby. It confidently recommended Elliott Bay Books – a great spot, but definitely not ‘one block east’ as it claimed. This was the only major hallucination I encountered in this experiment, but it could have been a real pain if I’d followed its instructions. Did I mention it was pouring rain outside?

By the time I set foot in Volunteer Park, the front of my jacket was soaked. My umbrella was doing the heavy lifting, but I needed it to cover my backpack with laptop inside. Gemini had suggested a scenic loop around the park or a trip into the conservatory – basically a giant greenhouse – if I wanted to dry off. No contest.