Google is trying out an AI mode-like search experience for YouTube. The company is now testing “a new way to search on YouTube that feels more like conversations,” resulting in things like long-form videos, YouTube Shorts, and text about what you’re searching for. “Experiment” is now available if you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber aged 18 or older in the US.
I turned it on for my account. Now, in the search bar, I see an “Ask YouTube” button, and clicking on the search bar brings up asking prompts like “funny baby elephant playing clip,” “summary of the rules of volleyball,” and “brief history of the Apollo 11 moon landing.” If I keep the search box blank but click the Ask YouTube button, YouTube takes me to a full page with suggested searches and a text box to ask a question.
When you search from Ask YouTube, YouTube briefly shows a mostly blank page with a loading icon, and after a few seconds, fills it with text and description. I tested it with the prompt “A Brief History of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing.” At the top of the results was a group of text summarizing the mission, which also included a bulleted list of milestones such as the date of the lunar landing and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon. Then, the page included a video about the launch timestamp in a section about the day of launch from a channel called “The Life Guide”, followed by a gallery of videos under headings such as “Splashdown from the launch,” “Historical footage and behind the scenes,” and a series of shorts about “moments on the surface.” (I think YouTube is removing the text for these sections from the highlighted videos in search results.)
Finally, there are a few more suggestions on the page, including “Who were the Apollo 11 astronauts” and (perhaps worryingly) “Apollo 11 conspiracy theories” and a text box that I can use to ask follow-up questions or start a new search. I clicked on “Who were the Apollo 11 astronauts” and got a new, slightly differently formatted set of results, including a grid with backgrounds of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. However, searching for “Apollo 11 conspiracy theories” showed a specific list of YouTube search results.
I gave Ask YouTube another test to see how it performs with something I’m very familiar with: Valve’s new Steam Controller, which I published a review of today. I asked, “What is the Steam Controller,” and YouTube gave an overview of the controller, pointed to Valve’s new video about the controller, and highlighted a “quick hands-on review” section featuring longform reviews and shorts (including our new short published today and one from last November).
This was all mostly correct, but I caught a factual error: YouTube claimed that the old, discontinued Steam Controller had no joystick, when in fact it did have one. It was a reminder that, as potentially useful as these AI-generated search results pages may seem, you need to do your due diligence to make sure they’re accurate.
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