There are a lot of great YouTube videos with tons of interesting information, but sometimes you’re in a hurry or trying to find something specific amid what may or may not be padding. Happily, Google Gemini can analyze YouTube videos on your behalf and really dive into the details you might have missed or didn’t have time to get to. I don’t just mean transcribing it or guessing what’s going on based on the title. And because Gemini and YouTube are both Google products, you don’t have to download the video and reupload it, just share the link to the video and start asking questions.
It’s pretty straightforward to use, but there are some benefits you might not immediately notice. Here are some of my favorite ways to use the AI feature.
Timestamped summaries
To get Gemini to analyze a YouTube video, you just have to ask it to do just that and include a YouTube link. For instance, I asked Gemini to “analyze this video” and pasted in the YouTube link to a great Defunctland video about the history of The Muppet Show.
Gemini came back with a long breakdown of the video’s exploration of how Jim Henson brought the show to TV, the evolution of the characters, how the show worked, and its legacy. Even better, it had helpful hyperlinks taking me right to where in the video those bits are discussed.
Timestamped trivia
As useful as the summaries are, sometimes you want something more specific. For instance, I asked Gemini to analyze a video about the perfect two-week trip to Japan. The summary it provided was great, but I wanted to see more about what to eat when in Tokyo, so I asked Gemini to tell me, “When in the video does it discuss restaurants in Tokyo?” It gave me a couple of sentences of what the video recommends and provided a hyperlink to where the discussion starts.
I like the idea of not having to wait for the part of the video you want and getting right into it, even if the video maker didn’t set up chapters for the video, especially if I’m hungry and thinking about travel at the same time.
Locate film spots
If you’re not paying close attention or have the video on mute, you might not always realize what you’re seeing on screen. You can ask Gemini to remedy that for you. In the Japan video, as I half-watched the second half, a beautiful market with a million exciting shops was shown in a montage. I noted the time in the video and asked Gemini about what the video was discussing at that point. The answer turned out to be the Nishiki Market and its more than 100 food stalls. Definitely a must-see on my imagined journey to Japan.
Quiz time
One of the underrated fun (and very nerdy) activities you can do with Gemini and YouTube is to make a little quiz on the video. It took less than a minute for Gemini to put together 10 questions that would fit on a Muppet Studies 101 midterm. The questions included everything from the premise of the show to guest stars and popular recurring segments and even its impact on later shows.
I continued the quiz and ended up getting 9 out of 10 questions correct. Gemini even offered a little summary of what I missed and suggested rewatching a specific 30-second clip if I wanted a refresher. But as silly as making a quiz on a video made just for fun might be, it also shows how it could work with anything. You could test yourself on history videos, science explainers, cooking tutorials, and anything else you really want to learn. Gemini might make some of those videos a real lesson and not just momentary entertainment.
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erichs211@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
