Google's AI chatbot Bard gets smarter, now answers questions about YouTube videos

Google Bard which was first unveiled in February 2023, also now has deep integration with several of Google's consumer applications and services, including Gmail, Docs, Maps, and YouTube.

Google has said that its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Bard can now understand YouTube videos and answer specific questions regarding the content of some of these videos.

This capability is an expansion of Bard's YouTube extension that was introduced in September 2023. Previously, the extension could only surface videos related to the user prompt.

"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," the company said in Bard's changelog.

For instance, if the user is looking for videos on how to make chocolate cake, they can later ask Bard how much cocoa powder is needed in the first video.

This feature update comes a week after Google expanded access to Bard to teenagers in most countries around the world, starting with the English language. The company said the AI chatbot can be a helpful tool for teens when they "need a little extra inspiration and motivation on their ideas, hobbies, and plans or when they want to better understand topics quickly."

Teenagers can use Bard to learn homework concepts or step-by-step explanations to a math problem. They can use it for topics such as preparing for college, learning a new sport, or applying for their first job among others.

The AI chatbot, which was first unveiled by Google in February 2023, also now has deep integration with several of the firm's consumer applications and services, including Gmail, Docs, and Maps, besides YouTube.

The company is also expanding Bard's visual search capabilities, including the ability to upload images with Google Lens and get Google Search images in responses, along with the chatbot's ability to change the tone and style of responses to more than 40 supported languages and countries.

Last month, Google also debuted Assistant with Bard, a virtual assistant that combines Bard's generative and reasoning capabilities with Assistant's personalised help.

The tech giant is also working on its next-generation foundation model, Gemini, which is expected to be multimodal in nature. Google is using YouTube video transcripts to train Gemini, according to a report from The Information. Google Bard is currently powered by PaLM 2, the large language model that was unveiled at Google I/O on May 10.

Meanwhile, YouTube is also gearing up to roll out its own set of generative AI tools. This includes the ability to create AI-generated video or image backgrounds for short videos by just typing an idea into a prompt through a feature called Dream Screen, as well as helping creators come up with new video ideas, find music tracks for their videos and reach new audiences through features such as automatic dubbing.

On November 16, the Google-owned video platform said it is allowing select Shorts creators in the United States to make original music snippets with AI-generated vocals from prominent artists as part of a new experimental feature called Dream Track.