recently Google it can be said will successively AI Apply the technology to all of our own products, earlier YouTube I started testing the new experimental feature “Ask YouTube.” Based on the name, you might think it lets you ask AI questions about video content directly. That’s not the case at all—it’s more like an AI-powered search feature. Instead of just getting a list of videos like before, you get a more comprehensive report, including AI-generated text summaries, multiple related videos, and video timestamp navigation. You can even follow up with additional questions afterward, which makes it incredibly useful for finding tutorial videos, planning trips, looking up recipes, and more.
In other words, YouTube is turning search into a tool that gives you direct answers, rather than just a list of video titles for you to sort through yourself.
For illustration only, not actual image
YouTube launches “Ask YouTube” AI search experiment: conversational Q&A with video clips, supports follow-up questions, limited to US Premium subscribers, trial runs until June 8
Ask YouTube works similarly to conversational search on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, except it only displays YouTube’s own video results. After enabling this experimental feature, an “Ask YouTube” button appears next to the search bar. Tapping it shows suggested prompts, or you can type your own question directly.
Below is a YouTube example: after searching “plan a 3-day road trip from San Francisco to Santa Barbara,” the results page is no longer just a list of videos, but rather a rich report with an AI-generated text summary at the top, followed by cited videos with timestamps for quick navigation, along with related Shorts, long-form video recommendations, cited sources, and more. Essentially, AI has already organized the key points from several videos for you, so you don’t have to watch each one individually (Source:TechCrunch）：
After you get results, you can continue asking follow-up questions if needed, like “Where can I get good coffee?” The entire conversation stays within the same context, and the AI will keep answering. It will also proactively suggest a few follow-up prompts worth exploring, guiding you to dig deeper and find more videos.
For people who want to use YouTube to plan trips, cook, or learn a new skill, this search method compared to the old way of just typing in a keyword makes it much easier to get the results you want and saves a lot of search time—it’s much more efficient.
However, it’s important to note that Ask YouTube is currently only available to YouTube Premium subscribers in the US who are 18 years or older, and you need to actively enable it on the YouTube Labs page—it’s not turned on by default. The experiment runs from April 28, 2026 to June 8, 2026, approximately six weeks.
Google also mentioned in the announcement that they’ll consider making it available to non-Premium users in the future, though there’s no timeline yet. Users in Taiwan won’t be able to experience it for now, so they can only hope Google will expand to more regions.
Notably, foreign media outlet The Verge has already tested Ask YouTube. When they asked “short history of the Apollo 11 moon landing,” they did receive a clear mission summary along with relevant videos and timestamps. However, the same test also noted that some search results are similar to traditional YouTube searches, just wrapped in an AI interface. Additionally, when The Verge tried asking questions about the Steam Controller, the AI provided incorrect information, and there are still hallucination issues.
Image source:The Verge
Source: KOCPC Chinese