YouTube adds product comparison tables to Ask YouTube search

A shopper who searches YouTube for a product review is often only two clicks from the checkout page, and YouTube wants to put its own answer in front of those clicks. On 23 September the company said in its Made on YouTube blog that it is adding shopping features to Ask YouTube, its conversational search product, so a query for reviews of a specific product may return a comparison table of creator videos with product attributes attached.

Johanna Voolich, YouTube's Vice President of Product Management for Viewer Products, wrote the announcement. She said viewers can ask follow-up questions inside the same conversation, whether on mobile or as voice commands on a TV, and that once a viewer clicks a video from the comparison table, the follow-up questions continue on the video's watch page.

Two Ask YouTube surfaces, doing different jobs

The comparison-table feature belongs to the search version of Ask YouTube, which is reached from the search bar. It is separate from the watch-page version of Ask YouTube, which is opened from a button under a video the viewer is already watching. Both belong to the same product, but the search version is where the model picks which reviews to show, and the watch-page version is where the shopper asks about a single product they have already opened.

Search Engine Journal, which reported the launch on the same day, said the comparison table "could offer shoppers an organized way to explore creator reviews alongside product features, ahead of deciding which one to watch". Its article added that "brands and ecommerce teams that access the shopping experience can use Ask YouTube to run their primary product queries to view which creator reviews appear and the attributes included in the responses".

What ecommerce and creator teams do with it

For a shopper who runs the query, the change is a shorter path to a decision. For a brand, the change is that the choice of which creator videos represent your product has moved from YouTube's ranking system to a model's selection inside one answer. YouTube did not say what training the model was given, how it decides which product attributes to include, or what the appeal path is if the model picks a hostile review over a positive one.

Voolich's post also describes Custom Feeds, a separate viewer feature that lets US users pin curated feeds to the homepage on web, mobile, and TVs, "soon". The two features share the same announcement but do different jobs, and Custom Feeds is not part of the search change.

For a team selling a product on YouTube, the practical step is to run your own primary product queries inside Ask YouTube once it reaches your account, note which creator reviews are picked and which attributes the model returns in the response, and treat that shortlist as a new distribution channel to work with the same way you already work with a creator campaign.

Source

• New YouTube Viewer Updates: Custom Feeds and Ask YouTube, Johanna Voolich, YouTube Blog, 23 September 2026
• YouTube Adds Shopping Features To Ask YouTube AI Search, Matt G. Southern, Search Engine Journal, 23 September 2026