After I Updated gms:play-services-location from 9.0.2 to 9.6.1, I couldn't import com.google.android.gms.location.places.Place and I couldn't use PlaceAutoComplete either.
Was it deprecated or removed from google play service location?
Per the list of split dependencies, to include the places APIs, you must include the dependency
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-places:9.6.1'
The places dependency was only added in Google Play services 9.2.0 - before that, it was part of the maps dependency, which was a requirement for location (version 9.6.0 also removed the dependency of location on maps), hence why previously when you included location you also got places.