Google’s voice recognition algorithms are getting better and smarter, and one of the areas where you can notice this improvement is YouTube. Even more appealing now is the fact that YouTube immediately starts playing a video when you do a voice search.
When the new YouTube voice search is rolled out to your device, a prompt will note “New ways to search with your voice!” the next time you start a query. Tapping the microphone icon in the top-right corner will load a fullscreen interface that respects YouTube’s dark mode.
A big red button at the bottom pulsates as you speak to YouTube, with listening timing out after a few seconds. A close button is in the top-left corner or users can just return with system navigation.
Your query will briefly appear as a transcription before the app completes your action. The previous voice search interface just took advantage of the standard dialogue available to all other apps on Android.
new YouTube voice search is much more powerful as it lets you navigate to different parts of the app directly. “Show me trending videos” will navigate users to the Trending tab. In the past, that same command would just perform a search with that phrase verbatim.
To try this, open the search page on the YouTube app on your phone then tap the microphone icon on the top right. Start by saying “play” and then ask for any video, including one whose specific title you know or something more elaborate like the new song by an artist, the latest Avengers trailer, the Eurovision 2019 winner, or the trailer of the latest movie by Julia Roberts. The smarts behind this appear to be the same as Assistant’s as YouTube is able to recognize instantly what you’re talking about. And instead of just giving you a page of results, it starts playing the video immediately, without you having to select or tap to play.
