YouTube search has always worked this way. You type in some keywords, scroll through the list of results and make your best guess. Google wants to change that, and a new experiment called Ask YouTube is its first real attempt to do so.
The feature is now live as an opt-in test for YouTube Premium subscribers aged 18 or older in the US. It’s only on desktop and available in English until June 8, unless Google decides to extend it. To try Ask YouTube AI Search, you’ll need to enable it through your account at youtube.com/new. Once it’s turned on, an “Ask YouTube” button appears next to the search bar. From there, you type in a query, and instead of getting a standard list of videos, you get a text summary, a special video tied to the relevant timestamp, and a gallery of both long-form videos and shorts organized by theme.
The Verge tested it Along with some prompts, including a brief history of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and results, a summary of the mission with relevant clips. It also has a follow-up prompt system, so you can continue a conversation without starting a new search.
What’s really different here
This isn’t the first time YouTube has hit on the idea of Conversational AI. In 2023, YouTube began testing the Ask button on individual videos, allowing you to ask questions about content you were already watching. The feature eventually expanded to premium members and then rolled out more widely. Ask YouTube takes the same concept but points it at the entire platform rather than a single video.
This is also part of a larger pattern at Google. The AI mode in Google Search uses the same back-and-forth search logic, and Google has been rolling it out continuously over the past year. Bringing a similar experience to YouTube makes sense, given that so many people already use the platform like a search engine.
The test ends on June 8, and YouTube hasn’t shared anything about how Ask YouTube chooses which video gets the top quote spot. For now, it’s early. But if the experiment continues, keyword-driven search on YouTube may start to feel quite outdated.
