You may now ask Google Bard questions about YouTube Videos

Google expanded the functionality of its AI Google Bard this week. The new feature improves the AI's understanding of YouTube videos. Basically, what it allows you to do know is to ask questions about a video on YouTube.

Powered by the YouTube Extension for Google Bard, it improves "Bard's ability to understand YouTube videos" according to Google's update on the Bard website.

I asked Google Bard to list all games of the latest Nintendo Direct Indie World Showcase, and Google Bard provided a list after a few seconds. Google explains that you may also ask Bard about the number of eggs used in a recipe video.

You may also use the feature to get more information about a topic. Say, you watched a video about stocks and need more information about terminology used in the video. You can ask Bard about Dividend Yield, diluted earnings per share or cost of debt, and the AI will provide an explanation.

Google offers no explanation how Google Bard is retrieving the information on the Experiments updates page. You may learn about it when you ask Bard a question about a video that it can't pull data from. When that happens, Bard explains that lack of closed captures could be one reason.

Bard returns in this case the following: "I'm sorry, but I'm unable to access this YouTube content. This is possible for a number of reasons, but the most common are: the content isn't a valid YouTube link, potentially unsafe content, or the content does not have a captions file that I can read."

In other words, if there is no captions file, Bard can't provide answers to questions about the video. It is unclear why it is not using automatic captions, as YouTube supports the feature.

Bard's answers vary significantly. The games that it returned in the Nintendo Direct video were indeed in the video, but Bard did not list them all. A quick look at Nintendo's own description revealed that there were more games than those that Bard returned.

Closing Words

All AI content that is generated and returned needs to be verified. This may not be much of a problem for non-critical information, but these AI products are designed for all sorts of interactions. Would you trust the AI when it comes to finances?

It is still important to check the output. Still, the ability to answer questions about YouTube videos is an interesting feature. It needs some work though. The interaction with other Google services adds value to Bard. It is a bit clunky at the moment, as you can't watch a video and communicate with Bard on YouTube at the time.

Open Bard in one tab or browser window and YouTube in the other to make things a bit more comfortable.

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