Waze wants your drive to feel like it’s actually built around you. The company just announced a batch of new Waze features focused on personalization, quieter guidance, and Gemini-powered search, giving drivers more control over how the app works.
Personalized navigation is the biggest addition. Waze will now suggest routes based on your past trips, not just real-time traffic patterns. Prefer highways over side streets with multiple turns? Waze will start prioritizing that in its suggestions. You can still pick alternate routes or turn personalization off entirely in settings.
There’s also a new less chatty mode for anyone who wants fewer interruptions while listening to music or a podcast. It keeps voice prompts short and less frequent, though critical alerts about hazards, turns, and lane changes still come through.
Gemini Handles the Talking Now
Two of the new Waze features lean on Gemini directly. Conversational Reporting already lets you report incidents like slowdowns just by talking, and it now covers map corrections too. Say something like “the road is closed here,” and Waze passes the details to local map editors for verification.
Finding a destination gets easier too. Tap the search voice icon and ask something like “find me a coffee shop that’s open right now,” and Waze pulls up a list you can start navigating to right away. That feature is currently limited to Waze’s beta community.
Waze also introduced motorcycle mode, which factors in two-wheeler shortcuts, restrictions, and hazards like potholes and narrow bridges. It’s rolling out in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines, with more countries expected soon.
Most of these new Waze features are live globally on Android and iOS starting today. A few, like Gemini-powered destination search, are still limited to beta testers for now.
