For a bit, and to a degree, yes. Last-decade image recognition and tagging teased what might be possible and is genuinely useful.

The new LLM-ish tools promise that users can be more vague and casual in what language they use and more elaborate in how specific they mean to be; and that the queries (and operations) can span more diverse data sources.

Are there examples of new tools based on recent AI advancements that perform better than Google Photos image recognition?

Google highlighted the delta that recent advancements brought to their products:

https://blog.google/products/photos/ask-photos-google-io-202...

Wow they announced this back in May and it's still not available for me.

Or better than Picasa almost 10 years ago.

iOS has been doing this for a bit too. I don't use it enough to really know how good it is but I can definitely look for cats or people I know. Haven't used Apple Intelligence yet so maybe that's better as well?

Google photos is way, way, way better than apple photos at this. It’s not even a competition.

I have my sister’s dogs named in my google photos library. Every time I a take a picture of either dog, they are automatically tagged and added to a shared album I set up for my sister.

I have nieces and nephews with photos from newborn age to 10+ years old, and it has managed to organize them across their growth and ages. It’s incredible. I can search for “<niece name> <vacation area>” and get every photo of her on a certain vacation to make a family scrap book.

Apple photos search and tagging is pitiful in comparison.

But one of the two you can have on your device and do not have to pay rent