Searching for videos on YouTube hasn’t changed much in the past 20 years. Launch the site, bypass algorithmic recommendations, and enter your query. I’ve found this to be a relatively reliable way to find the videos I’m looking for. In my experience, if it doesn’t show up in search, it usually means the video in question doesn’t exist on YouTube. But it’s now 2026. I mean, I can only wonder. Why isn’t AI used in YouTube search?
How YouTube’s new AI search works
Irony aside, AI search is certainly something Google is working on. The Verge reports that the company is testing a new search experience that pulls pages from Google Search’s “AI Mode” feature. The idea, the company says, is to make searching on YouTube feel more like a “conversation.” Instead of entering a simple keyword or video title, you can ask a “complex question”. The AI uses it to return results that include both text and video. You can then ask your follow-up to “dig deeper.”
If you use YouTube to find interesting videos, this may sound like too much AI. However, the use case here seems to be aimed at users who may rely on YouTube for research or to answer specific questions. In its feature description, YouTube suggests asking the AI to “plan a three-day road trip between San Francisco and Santa Barbara.” This is the kind of question that Google and other companies have posed to their AI web search tools, and perhaps Google sees a particular advantage in YouTube’s ability to tap into its vast library of content to generate answers to complex questions. While that work may already be done in Google Search’s AI mode, this tool specifically captures viewers who may be searching on YouTube.
The Verge’s Jay Peters tried out the new AI search feature. First, I searched for “A short history of the Apollo 11 moon landing.” The AI results on YouTube started with a text-based overview of the mission and walked through some of the highlights related to the moon landing. The AI called up one video in particular, giving Peters a specific moment to ask for information on the day of the launch. Beneath these results was a series of videos and shorts covering various topics from Apollo 11, which were pretty standard. At the bottom of the results, though, YouTube offers more prompts to try, such as “Apollo 11 conspiracy theory,” suggesting that the AI isn’t afraid to steer users into more non-routine conversations and topics.
Peters noted that when he tried the same thing with a question about the new Steam Controller, YouTube’s AI gave an error suggesting that the older Steam Controller didn’t come with a joystick. (At least, that’s what happened.) It’s possible that the AI drew from the wrong source or accidentally hallucinated the wrong answer. In any case, this example highlights that AI is still far from perfect, and while the speed and volume of these search results may suggest that the answers are reliable, you should always double-check the AI’s behavior.
What do you think so far?
How to try YouTube’s new AI search
As of this writing, only YouTube Premium subscribers can test this new AI search. Assuming you have a subscription, before you lock your query, type your question into the YouTube search bar,[YouTube に質問する]Select. If you are not satisfied with the answer, you can continue the “conversation” by asking additional questions.
YouTube says the feature will be available to premium users until June 8th. It’s unclear whether the company will roll out this option as a full feature on that date or whether it will discontinue it for the time being.
