Google Gemini users can now tag YouTube into a chat with the AI assistant and have it find a specific video, type of video or even analyze the contents of an upload.
Google has been gradually improving its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot since its launch, including rebranding it from the original Bard name and adding more powerful models.
The new tagging feature also applies to other Google products including Docs, Drive, Flights and Maps. You can also tag multiple products in the same chat but it doesn’t always work as you'd expect.
Why tag products in Gemini?
Tagging is something OpenAI has already rolled out for ChatGPT, allowing you to call in a custom GPT chatbot or a specific tool such as the DALL-E image generator.
Google has a much more limited selection of plugins and no custom GPTs. It relies on its own products and the functionality they can offer to a chatbot.
The biggest value though comes from data. If you use Google's Workspace products you've given the search giant vast amounts of information it can pull from with AI.
This is specifically localized to you and your account, and is an opt-in service but if you tick the Docs and Drive boxes Gemini can become an invaluable search and analysis tool for your own documents.
For example, I was able to quickly find emails in Gmail about a flight, plans I'd put into a few Google Docs and have Maps show the route.
What can you do with tagging in Gemini?
At the moment tagging is restricted to enabled plugins. It effectively forces Gemini to use that plugin instead of trying to answer on its own.
This is particularly useful if you want it to find an answer from a YouTube video rather than draw on a search result or its own training data.
Tagging is also an indication Google could be following OpenAI and Microsoft in offering a wider range of plugins, even third-party plugins, in the future.
I'd love to be able to tag in something like Udio to generate a song and then tag YouTube to upload that song — all without leaving Gemini.
