Google partners to expand AI customer service capabilities of Maps
Google is teaming up with two third-party tech platforms to enhance the conversational artificial intelligence functionality of its Google Maps solution.
The tech giant is collaborating with payment solutions provider Square and restaurant management platform Toast to make it easier for consumers to discover and buy products using the Ask Maps conversational AI feature of Google Maps.
Following are brief overviews of each partnership:
Square
Square is building on its existing relationship with Google to bring U.S. food and beverage retailers into Ask Maps, where customers can discover restaurants and place orders by asking questions. Square food service retailers who activate a Google Business Profile can surface in Ask Maps results and have new order flows enabled.
Ask Maps can give Square customers an intuitive way to find and order from local restaurants, with prompts like: "Order spicy pad kee mao with seafood for me to pick up on my way home.” Retailer menus, hours, and location details will automatically sync from the Square dashboard with no added setup, contracts, or fees required.
Information in Square pulls to a Google Business Profile and Ask Maps in real time, helping keep listings current. Retailers can seamlessly get started with no API or new tool required and no added cost.
Customers in the U.S. can also use Ask Maps to browse Square restaurants’ menus, customize orders, and complete checkout using the Order by Cash App feature of the Cash App digital payment platform. For retailers, these orders flow directly into their existing Square setup.
"The way people find a restaurant to book, a cafe to visit, or take-out to order is evolving," said Morgan Kuntze, global partnerships lead at Square parent Block. "Our expanded work with Google means Square sellers show up in those conversations, without having to manually update their details across the many channels their business is present. We built Square to help sellers show up everywhere their customers are going, and increasingly, that's in an AI-powered conversation like Ask Maps. Square sellers are now positioned to be there when it matters most."
Square and Google plan to expand their partnership further, including extending Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard for agentic AI-based commerce intended to cover the entire shopping journey from discovery and buying to post-purchase support, to the food service industry.
[READ MORE: Google introduces new Universal Commerce Protocol features]
Toast
Toast is bringing agentic food ordering to Ask Maps. When a customer asks by voice or text for a restaurant recommendation or specific food request, Ask Maps can now put a Toast restaurant's menu directly in front of them and carry that request all the way through to a completed order.
Customers can move from a search to a completed order in one continuous flow. Orders placed through Ask Maps flow through Toast's first-party ordering system, avoiding third-party commission fees.
To help drive early adoption, Toast is funding a promotional offer. Anyone who places an order through a Toast restaurant via Ask Maps will receive $5 in Toast Cash to use toward their next order at any participating Toast restaurant. Customers can redeem the offer in the Toast Local app. Expected to begin in late August 2026, customers will be able to claim their promo by using Ask Maps in the Google Maps app to place orders at any Toast restaurant.
"At Toast, we're always looking for new ways to help our customers turn discovery into demand," said Kelly Esten, chief marketing officer and COO of enterprise at Toast. "This integration with Google is a direct extension of that work, bringing a new agentic ordering experience to a discovery moment guests already rely on. Now, guests can go from searching within Google Maps to ordering from a Toast restaurant in one seamless motion, surfacing our customers' menus at the exact moment the guest is deciding what to order — creating opportunities to turn that attention directly into revenue with no extra work required from our operators."
Toast is a co-developer of the Google UCP for Food with Google and other companies.
