Google Bard can now watch YouTube videos for you

Google recently upgraded its AI assistant Bard to better understand and summarize YouTube videos. Users can now ask Bard complex questions about a video’s content without needing to watch it.

For example, Bard can provide full plot summaries or highlight specific video details if asked. This expands Bard’s integration with other Google products like Maps, Google Drive, Google Flights, Docs, and Gmail, allowing Bard to pull information from them too.

Google announced the video features in a November 21 experiment update. "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 wrote.

Bard was released last year to tap into the then-exploding market for generative AI that came with the release of ChatGPT. The launch of Bard wasn’t as successful as the company would have hoped but they’ve been swiftly upgrading the chatbot to better compete with their rivals.

While it’s undoubtedly a major upgrade for Bard, some critics worry this expansion reduces the need to actually watch videos, posing a big threat to online educators. It has also reignited the debate about privacy and Google controlling services through AI.