Google's Ask with Video uses AI and Lens to answer questions

Ask a question on video

Of all the AI announcements Google made today, one of the more useful may be a new feature called “Ask with Video” powered by Gemini. This new feature (like most of Google's AI features) is powered by Gemini and uses a combination of Gemini's AI capabilities and Google Lens to answer users' questions.

As you may know, Google Lens uses your phone's camera to provide information about something in a photo. Based on what the photo contains, Google will show you relevant information, such as Google search results. Ask With Video doesn't actually work that way, but it uses some of the same technology. It's actually a more powerful tool. This was announced today at Google's I/O conference, and Google also showed off a little demonstration of how it all works. Record a video, then call Ask a Video and Lens will use Gemini to answer any question you have.

Of course, your questions should be directly related to the video.

Ask with Video uses Gemini to answer questions in search

Let's say you have a problem with a piece of equipment you own. This could be anything, but to keep things simple, let's use the Google example. I have a turntable and the tone arm won't stay in place. A tone arm is an arm with a needle extending upwards and downwards above the record. If you're having trouble with this and it keeps coming back to its original position, you can record a video and use Ask a Video to figure out what's wrong. Ask, “Why doesn’t this stick?” This will return a large number of Google search results.

This can be done for basically anything. Perhaps your PC keeps looping when trying to boot. So in this case, record a video of this happening and ask why the same thing keeps happening. The final results should include a summary of Google's new AI. Google just started rolling it out to all users in the US.

Ask a question in video 1

New AI features will be added to search in the coming weeks

AI Overview is rolling out to all users in the US starting today, but some AI features will take a little longer. Ask with Video is one of his works. Google has confirmed that it's coming soon. Ask a Video and other new features will start rolling out in the coming weeks.

However, you can get a head start by trying it out. Google says if you opt in to Search Labs, you can be among the first to try them out. We did something similar with AI Overview earlier this year. That being said, it wouldn't be surprising to see a full rollout later this summer.