YouTube’s AI Chat Feature Now Available on TV
▼ Summary
– YouTube has expanded its experimental conversational AI feature from mobile/web to smart TVs, consoles, and streaming devices, allowing viewers to ask questions about a video without leaving it.
– The feature lets users click an “Ask” button or use their remote’s microphone to get instant answers about video content, such as recipe ingredients or song lyrics.
– This TV expansion follows YouTube’s growing dominance on the big screen, with a Nielsen report finding it accounted for over 12% of total TV audience time, surpassing Disney and Netflix.
– Competitors like Amazon (Alexa+ on Fire TV), Roku, and Netflix are also actively developing and deploying conversational AI assistants for television content.
– YouTube is pursuing multiple other AI initiatives, including upscaling video resolution, summarizing comments, AI-driven search, and letting creators make AI-generated Shorts.
The competition to bring advanced conversational artificial intelligence into our living rooms is intensifying, and YouTube has taken a major step by expanding its AI chat feature to smart televisions, gaming consoles, and streaming devices. This move places interactive AI directly onto the biggest screen in most homes, fundamentally changing how viewers engage with content. Previously a mobile and web experiment, the tool now lets users ask questions about what they’re watching without ever needing to exit the video or pause playback.
Eligible viewers will see an “Ask” button on their TV screen, which activates the AI assistant. The feature provides suggested queries based on the video’s content, and users can also press the microphone button on their remote to ask their own questions. Imagine watching a cooking tutorial and asking for a list of ingredients, or hearing a song and inquiring about the meaning behind its lyrics, the AI delivers answers instantly, creating a seamless, uninterrupted viewing experience. For now, this capability is rolling out to a limited group of users aged 18 and older, with support for English, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean.
YouTube first introduced this conversational AI in 2024 to help people dive deeper into videos. Its expansion to the television interface is a strategic response to shifting viewer habits. Recent data highlights that more Americans now access YouTube through their TV than any other method, with the platform commanding a significant share of total television watch time, even outpacing giants like Netflix and Disney in certain metrics.
YouTube is not alone in this push. Amazon has integrated its enhanced Alexa+ assistant into Fire TV devices, allowing for natural conversations where users can request personalized show recommendations, search for specific movie scenes, or get details about actors and filming locations. Similarly, Roku has upgraded its voice assistant to handle open-ended questions about programming, and Netflix is actively testing its own AI-powered search functionality.
Beyond interactive chat, YouTube is employing AI to refine the overall TV experience in other ways. One recently launched feature automatically upscales videos uploaded at lower resolutions to full HD quality, improving clarity for viewers. The platform is also rolling out additional AI tools, including a comment summarizer that distills lengthy discussions and an AI-driven carousel for search results. Earlier this year, YouTube announced upcoming capabilities for creators, such as using AI to generate digital versions of themselves for producing Shorts.
Further broadening its ecosystem, YouTube recently launched a dedicated application for the Apple Vision Pro, enabling users to watch content on a massive, theater-sized virtual screen within an immersive environment.
(Source: TechCrunch)
