YouTube is testing an AI search mode that ‘feels more like a conversation’
Google is determined to force AI search on as many products as possible, and the latest victim is YouTube. A new feature called “Ask YouTube” will allow you to ask complex questions and receive “full results including video and text, then request follow-ups to dig deeper,” Google explained on its YouTube Labs page. The experimental feature is available from today until June 8 for US Premium subscribers aged 18 and over.
To use it, first enable the feature in your account. Next, click the new “Ask YouTube” button in the search bar and you’ll see quick suggestions, or you can enter your own, like “plan a 3-day road trip from San Francisco to Santa Barbara.” After you get the results, you can try follow-up questions or choose from suggested prompts to explore in more detail.
As shown The edgeIn the quick test of , the prompt “Brief history of the Apollo 11 moon landing” brought up a summary of the mission, along with videos and timestamps for relevant information. Follow-up questions yielded similar results, but some queries simply displayed a list of videos like you would see in a typical YouTube search. As is the case with AI, one of the searches (around a Steam controller) yielded factually inaccurate information, according to The edgeIt’s Jay Peters.
Tech companies love AI much more than the general public, and YouTube users are particularly passionate about hating AI-generated filth. YouTube’s AI search feature may be more effective with subscribers, but only if it helps them find quality content more quickly.
