<div dir="ltr"><p class="gmail-font-claude-response-body gmail-break-words gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-leading-[1.7]" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;border:0px;outline:0px;font-size:16px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Lato,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida,sans-serif">Look at a map of your city — the parcels, the streets, the zoning boundaries layered over floodplains and utility networks. Within seconds, your brain processes the spatial relationships between these features. You understand that roads connect intersections, that parcels have boundaries you can’t walk through, and that a path from City Hall to the water treatment plant follows a specific, constrained route. This kind of spatial reasoning is so fundamental to human cognition that we rarely think about it.</p><p class="gmail-font-claude-response-body gmail-break-words gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-leading-[1.7]" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;border:0px;outline:0px;font-size:16px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Lato,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida,sans-serif">Artificial intelligence, for all its remarkable advances, has struggled with exactly this skill. Until now.</p><p class="gmail-font-claude-response-body gmail-break-words gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-leading-[1.7]" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;border:0px;outline:0px;font-size:16px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Lato,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida,sans-serif">On February 17, 2026, Google Research published “<a class="gmail-underline gmail-underline gmail-underline-offset-2 gmail-decoration-1 gmail-decoration-current/40 gmail-hover:decoration-current gmail-focus:decoration-current" href="https://research.google/blog/teaching-ai-to-read-a-map/" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent;color:rgb(28,165,234);text-decoration-line:none">Teaching AI to Read a Map</a>,” a blog post introducing their new <a class="gmail-underline gmail-underline gmail-underline-offset-2 gmail-decoration-1 gmail-decoration-current/40 gmail-hover:decoration-current gmail-focus:decoration-current" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19609" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;outline:0px;vertical-align:baseline;background:transparent;color:rgb(28,165,234);text-decoration-line:none">MapTrace</a> system for teaching multimodal large language models (MLLMs) to trace valid routes on maps. On its surface, the research addresses a narrow problem — path-finding on visual maps. But beneath that surface lies a breakthrough methodology with profound implications for the entire geospatial industry, and particularly for the local and state government agencies that depend on GIS to manage everything from emergency response to land use planning.</p><p class="gmail-font-claude-response-body gmail-break-words gmail-whitespace-normal gmail-leading-[1.7]" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;border:0px;outline:0px;font-size:16px;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Lato,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida,sans-serif"><a href="https://geospatialtraining.com/spatial-intelligence-is-coming-to-llms-is-government-gis-ready/">Read the entire article.</a></p><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Eric Pimpler<div>President/Owner</div><div>Geospatial Training Services</div><div>215 W Bandera #114-104</div><div>Boerne, TX 78006</div><div><a href="http://geospatialtraining.com" target="_blank">http://geospatialtraining.com</a></div><div>Twitter - @gistraining</div><div>Instagram - @eric_pimpler</div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBsovhqqh9xWnuTESkQdtkg" target="_blank">YouTube</a></div><div><a href="mailto:eric@geospatialtraining.com" target="_blank">eric@geospatialtraining.com</a></div><div>210-260-4992</div><div><img width="200" height="79" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zH0t7YckIWXbK74Fcnz4OoIAPMMnKkeioKrH037kPtxGmWK37uZQScakRvnDdUKHWjoF10hoU"><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>