The New YouTube AI Chatbot: What this Conversational AI Tool Does, and How it Can Help Your Content Succeed

While there will never be a replacement for simply creating quality content, if you do want to find success on YouTube one of the best tricks is to stay ahead of the technology curve. And there is no bigger technology topic these days than artificial intelligence.

But as we’ve seen with other AI innovations in video production and online content creation, YouTube’s integration of AI has been more focused on ways to help its user experience. One of the newer AI-powered features is the YouTube AI chatbot, its conversational AI tool.

Let’s take a look at YouTube’s conversational AI tool and explore how it works to let users interact with AI to learn more about content on YouTube, as well as see if we can glean some insights into how you can use it to put your content in a better spot to succeed.

What is the YouTube Conversational AI Tool?  

According to Google (who is YouTube’s parent company), the conversational AI tool offered by YouTube is an experimental new AI tool designed to let users interact with AI to learn more about the content that one is watching.

For example, YouTube shares that users will be able to ask questions about the video that they’re watching or choose to suggest a prompt like “recommend related content.” YouTube’s AI algorithm will then generate a response to your query or command and then take you to another video or page on the app.

Now, this is a relatively new tool that YouTube has introduced, so the company does warn that the AI-generated responses are still experimental and may not reflect the views of YouTube. YouTube further warns that the quality and accuracy may vary here in these early days as well.

How to use the new YouTube AI chatbot

So how does one use this exciting new AI tool on YouTube? Well, it’s both simple and a bit complex. It’s simple in the sense that it’s literally easy to do. All you have to do is navigate to the “Ask” button on the app. From there users will be able to select from one of the suggested prompts, or type their own question.

However, what’s tricky perhaps, is the fact that only certain YouTube users currently have access to this AI conversational tool. As of today, the YouTube conversational AI tool is only available in English to YouTube Premium users in the United States over the age of 18.

The YouTube conversational AI tool can also only be accessed by those using Android devices. However, YouTube does report that the tool is expected to expand to more users and languages in the future.

How does the YouTube conversational AI tool work?

Of course explaining how any AI tool works is going to be a bit tricky without delving pretty deep into how large language models (LLMs) are constructed and the nature of different algorithms. With that being said, if you are curious about what’s going on under the hood of YouTube’s conversational AI tool there is some information available which YouTube has shared.

In short, YouTube’s AI chatbot has been designed to provide answers to questions about the videos that users are watching. The responses are generated by LLMs which draw info from YouTube and the rest of the internet. YouTube does warn that these responses are for informational purposes only at this point, so don’t take them to be anything deeper than that at this point.

How is data collected and used with the YouTube conversational AI tool?

Now, there’s been a lot of discussion online these days about how these large tech companies are collecting data not just for their own informational purposes, but also for how they are training these new AI models.

While Google and YouTube have both come under fire for their data collection policies in the past, the company is at least upfront about the fact that they will be collecting data around the use of the tool, as well as any queries or feedback which users submit.

Here’s the full explanation about the data collection according to Google:

“When you interact with this tool, we will collect data around your use of the tool, and queries and feedback you submit. This data helps us to provide, improve, and develop our products and services. Conversations connected with your Google Account will be deleted automatically after 45 days. 

To help with quality and improve our products, such as the generative machine-learning models that power this tool, human reviewers read, give notes on, and process your conversations with this tool. We take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process. These steps include disconnecting your conversations from your Google Account before reviewers see or take notes on them. We also use automated tools to remove personal info, like email addresses and phone numbers. 

Conversations that have been reviewed or annotated by human reviewers aren’t deleted automatically after 45 days. These conversations are kept separately and aren’t connected to your Google Account. Instead, they're kept for up to 3 years.”

So if you’re wary about protecting your data, you might want to stay away. With that being said though, this doesn’t look to be anything more than the data Google and YouTube undoubtedly collect about your searches and views, which do help inform their algorithm to recommend everything from predictive search queries to which videos are recommended to you in your feed.

Does the YouTube conversational AI tool currently show ads?

It’s also quickly worth mentioning that the YouTube conversational AI tool does not currently show ads either in the responses or allow for creators to advertise their channels in any responses.

How to use the YouTube conversational AI tool for your content?

The big question here really has to do with how this YouTube AI chatbot can possibly be used to help you develop your branded channel and boost YouTube engagement rates. As we’ve covered in the past, the art of creating a YouTube channel can be quite a challenge. 

So if there is ever a new technology being offered by YouTube which can help put your content in front of new users, it’s certainly worth checking it out. For now though, it doesn’t look like this new conversational AI tool offers too much just yet, however if you would like to stay in front of the curve, here are some tips to keep in mind when exploring this new AI feature.

• Make sure your videos are clearly titled and include plenty of info in the video description. Consider using a YouTube title generator to optimize your video’s searchability.
• Make sure your videos on YouTube have their full text transcribed so that YouTube can scan it. If you need help with this, the YouTube Aloud AI tool can transcribe your videos.
• Do research around what queries go along with the topics of your videos.
• Be sure to answer these queries in your videos as directly as possible.
• Limit your content to one person clearly talking at a time so you don’t confuse YouTube about what your video covers.

Of course there are no completely proven ways to put your videos in a better spot to succeed with this new AI tool or any other future technologies. Your best bet will always be to focus on creating direct and impactful content which viewers will find useful and entertaining.