Google Places MCP Server

Google Places MCP Server

The Google Places MCP Server bridges the gap between AI assistants and the rich location data available through the Google Places API. By exposing a set of structured tools, it enables developers to incorporate real‑time place search, filtering, and detail retrieval into conversational agents without writing custom HTTP clients. This solves a common pain point: pulling up‑to‑date, location‑aware information from an external service while maintaining the seamless dialogue flow that users expect from AI assistants.

At its core, the server offers a single fully‑implemented tool—places-text-search—that performs free‑text queries against Google Places. Clients can specify a wide range of optional filters such as type, price level, rating thresholds, and even electric‑vehicle charging options. The tool returns a curated list of place objects that include the fields requested, allowing downstream processing or presentation logic to decide what information is most relevant. The server also supports Server‑Sent Events (SSE) for real‑time communication, making it possible to stream results back to the assistant as they arrive and keep users engaged with live updates.

Key capabilities include:

• Text‑based place discovery with fine‑grained control over result ranking (relevance vs. distance) and localization.
• Transport flexibility: SSE for real‑time streaming or standard HTTP POST/GET endpoints, giving developers the choice that best fits their architecture.
• Extensible tool set: Placeholder tools for nearby search, place details, and photo retrieval are already defined in the specification, ready to be implemented when needed.

Real‑world use cases span from travel planning assistants that suggest restaurants near a user’s current location to customer support bots that fetch store details during a conversation. By delegating the heavy lifting of place lookup to this MCP server, developers can focus on crafting natural dialogue flows while still offering precise, up‑to‑date location information.

Integration is straightforward: an AI assistant simply invokes the places-text-search tool with the desired parameters, receives a structured response, and incorporates it into the conversation. The SSE transport even allows the assistant to push incremental updates—such as additional search results or live open‑status changes—without interrupting the user’s experience. Overall, the Google Places MCP Server provides a powerful, developer‑friendly bridge between conversational AI and one of the most comprehensive location data providers available.