Google is bringing a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) feature to YouTube to let you ask questions about videos, starting with the Android app first.

Google said last year it would bring conversational AI to YouTube, powered by its generative machine learning models, and now it’s making good on that promise. Conversational AI lets you ask various questions about the currently watched video without leaving the YouTube app, like asking about the ingredients in a cooking video.

The algorithm analyzes the contents of the video, allowing you to ask questions about it. Responses are generated by large language models (LLMs) using both information from YouTube and the web. “Use it to dive deeper into the content you love by asking questions about what you’re watching or for recommendations for similar videos,” YouTube wrote on Twitter/X.

It’s like an AI-powered search in Google Photos and Apple Photos, but only for video. Hitting the Ask button under the video player lets you pick a suggested prompt or write your own. To submit feedback about the response, hit the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon. You can also report a response for legal reasons by choosing “Report legal issues” after giving it a thumbs-down. Your feedback will be reviewed by “specially trained teams,” Google says.

Google collects data “around your use of the tool and the queries and feedback that you submit.” Queries are saved in your Google Account for 45 days, and humans may read them as part of product improvement. Automated tools disconnect a query from your account and strip away personally identifiable information, like email addresses and phone numbers, before a human reviewer sees it. The fine print: “Conversations that are disconnected from your Google Account and have been reviewed by human reviewers aren’t deleted automatically after 45 days. These conversations are kept separately for up to three years.”

We don’t like it when companies show anything related to AI down our throats, but this has got to be one of the better use cases for AI. Being able to ask about things seen in a video could save a lot of time compared to traditional search engines. I know perfectly well how I’ll be using this feature when it expands to iOS: video summaries! I’m curious to test how they work considering there’s a whole cottage industry of videos that summarize other popular YouTube videos that this feature could render obsolete.

Conversational AI is being rolled out in a limited fashion, starting with the Android app first (no clarity on when it might expand to iOS). The tool is currently restricted to the English language and “some academic learning videos,” according to YouTube Help.

Most importantly, you must be a YouTube Premium member to get early access to YouTube’s AI feature. Google hasn’t said whether the final version of this feature might be available without a Premium subscription. Conversational AI is currently unavailable outside the United States, and you must be older than 18 to use it on your Android device.

Source: Google via 9to5Google