YouTube will test Ask YouTube inside the Shorts player, extending an AI question feature that Sundar Pichai said drew more than 140 million users on watch pages in June alone.

The company announced on Oct. 12 that viewers "will soon be able to use Ask YouTube directly from the watch page while watching Shorts and live streams." A Creator Insider video posted the same day describes the Shorts test as a limited, global experiment. It is English only and open to viewers 18 and older.

That is roughly two months after Pichai, Alphabet's CEO, cited the 140 million figure in Q2 earnings remarks — a number that gives the test its scale of comparison: the feature already reaches an audience larger than the population of most European countries.

What does the test actually change?

The experiment puts Ask YouTube in the Shorts player on desktop, TV, and mobile. The Creator Insider video's description reads:

"It's English only, 18 and older only, but if you're part of the experiment, you'll be able to tap or select the sparkle icon on select Shorts and try out pre-populated prompts or ask questions to get details about the Short on your screen."

Free-form prompts — questions viewers write themselves — are directed to Ask YouTube, according to the same description.

The description also flags new feeds on Android and iOS where viewers will be able to "discover similar creators, find related shorts, and explore topics based on your watch history."

The takeaway: for viewers in the experiment, AI answers would appear while a Short plays, plus a new discovery path outside the main feeds.

How does this fit the existing feature?

The Shorts test builds on the Ask YouTube button that already sits below selected videos on the watch page. That watch-page version is broader in reach and narrower nowhere else: its help page lists many languages and countries and opens the feature to signed-in users aged 13 and older — or the applicable age in their country — on Android, iOS, computers, and smart TVs.

The Shorts test reverses that logic. It restricts language to English and lifts the age floor from 13 to 18.

The watch-page feature is separate from the search version of Ask YouTube, as Search Engine Journal reported in September. YouTube's Oct. 12 post says the search version is coming to mobile devices, making it available to U.S. viewers across web, mobile, and TVs. The Creator Insider description does not say where free-form prompts open within Ask YouTube.

What don't we know?

The Creator Insider description leaves three gaps:

• How YouTube chooses the "select Shorts" that carry the feature
• How the new Android and iOS feeds pick their suggestions
• Whether creators get any controls over any of it

YouTube's Oct. 12 post and the Creator Insider description both say Shorts support arrives soon. Neither gives a start date. Neither names the countries in the experiment.

Until YouTube fills those gaps, creators watching the rollout have one practical step: the watch-page help page, which the company points to for details on Shorts as the experiment begins.

By Tom Whitfield