AI Journey with Google Maps | In conversation with Miriam Daniel

Miriam Daniel, VP and General Manager of Google Maps, joins Mala Ramakrishnan to discuss building and scaling one of the world’s most used consumer platforms in the age of AI.From her early engineering career in India to leading Google Maps with over 2 billion monthly users, Miriam shares lessons on career pivots, the power of sponsors, learning from failure at Amazon’s Fire Phone, and helping build Alexa from the ground up. She also explains how Google Maps is evolving with Gemini, voice, and generative AI—while maintaining accuracy, trust, and privacy at planetary scale.This episode covers product-market fit, platform leadership, AI in consumer products, and what it takes to operate and innovate at global scale.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 Intro and background01:00 Growing up in India and engineering at BITS Pilani02:00 Early career and move to the US03:00 From engineering to product leadership04:10 Why sponsors matter in big companies05:20 Platform and mobility work at Intel06:30 Taking a risk and joining Amazon07:15 Fire Phone failure and leadership lessons08:40 Building Alexa from the early days10:10 Finding product-market fit with voice11:40 How users shaped Alexa’s evolution13:20 Ecosystems, developers, and scale15:00 Why Google Maps and its mission16:40 Gemini, AI, and the future of Maps18:40 Accuracy, data, and trust at scale21:00 Operating and innovating for 2B+ users23:00 Personal inspiration and final advice----------------------------------------------- 🔗 Connect with Miriam → https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-daniel-38596b/🔗 Connect with Mala Ramakrishnan → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malaramakrishnan🎧 Subscribe to the podcastYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnL3D6aI60R-cCvypFIkh4Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NIDE4cT5fuVjC3HaGbCDK?si=eoSTNmhqQNKHQl9d1Jx0UQApple Podcast: https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/my-podcasts/show/talking-to-the-leaders-of-ai-the-ceo-series-with-mala/22ad2bae-502b-4eb1-aa74-53bc79754db7Visit our Website: www.malaramakrishnan.com | www.founderscreative.ai