Google Bard can now watch YouTube videos for you

The YouTube extension gets a brainy upgrade.
By Chase DiBenedetto  on 
The Google Bard logo on an iPhone screen.
Bard can now enjoy falling into a YouTube hole, just like the rest of us. Credit: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Google Bard users can now get into the nitty gritty details of their favorite YouTube videos with the AI chatbot, due to a new expansion that enables Bard to understand a video's content and respond to user requests for information

Google announced the generative AI expansion in a Nov. 21 experiment update, writing: "We're taking the first steps in Bard's ability to understand YouTube videos... We’ve heard you want deeper engagement with YouTube videos. So we’re expanding the YouTube Extension to understand some video content so you can have a richer conversation with Bard about it."

Now, when a user asks Bard to find them specific videos, they can also ask more complex follow-up questions about it's content, including full summaries and specific details, before even hitting play.

Google's been hard at work to fill out its chatbot since its launch earlier this year. In September, Google announced a slew of similarly enhanced features, including Google Flights, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube browser extensions, which enables Bard to pull data directly from the sites.

At the same time, the company added a tool for users to double-check the bot's answers, and later unveiled it's new Assistant with Bard (a combination of Google's personal assistant and generative AI) in October. Last week, the company also announced it was opening up Bard access for teens.

Some online worried that the new update could threaten the future of online video educators, and it builds on looming privacy and ownership concerns levied at generative AI as a whole.

It also signals a possible future where Bard can do just about everything for you as long as Google owns it, including consuming content.

Chase sits in front of a green framed window, wearing a cheetah print shirt and looking to her right. On the window's glass pane reads "Ricas's Tostadas" in red lettering.
Chase DiBenedetto
Social Good Reporter

Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. Her work also touches on how these conversations manifest in politics, popular culture, and fandom. Sometimes she's very funny.


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