# Ask AI: Chat with YouTube Videos and PDFs

> Chat with any YouTube video, article or PDF in SumAI. Ask a question in plain language and get an answer from the source, with timestamps you can tap.

- Source: https://getsumai.app/features/ask-ai-chat/
- Last updated: 2026-11-12
- About: SumAI: YouTube & PDF Summary, an AI summarizer app for iPhone and iPad

**Ask the video anything.** Ask AI lets you chat with any video or document you summarize in SumAI. Type a question in plain language and get an answer drawn from the source itself. For videos, answers include timestamps you can tap to jump to the exact moment they come from.

## Highlights

- **Answers from the source.** Ask AI answers from the transcript of the video or the text of the document you summarized.
- **Timestamps you can tap.** Answers about a video point to the moments they come from. Tap a time and the video jumps there, so checking takes seconds.
- **Follow-up questions.** It is a conversation. Ask for an example, a simpler explanation or the next step without starting over.
- **PDFs and articles too.** The same chat works for the [PDFs](https://getsumai.app/features/pdf-summarizer/) and [web articles](https://getsumai.app/features/web-page-summarizer/) you summarize.

## What Ask AI is for

A summary answers the question "what is this about?" Ask AI answers the next one: "what does it say about the thing I care about?"

That is the difference between reading a summary of a 90-minute interview and being able to ask, "What did she say about pricing?" and getting three sentences and a timestamp.

## Questions that work well

Ask AI is most useful when the question is specific. Some patterns:

| Goal | Example question |
| --- | --- |
| Find a moment | "Where does he explain the second experiment?" |
| Get one fact | "What sample size does the study use?" |
| Understand | "Explain the main argument as if I am new to the topic." |
| Compare | "How does the speaker's view differ from the critics she mentions?" |
| Study | "What should I remember for an exam?" |
| Act | "List the steps of the method in order." |

Then follow up. "Give me an example." "Which part is the most disputed?" "Make that a three-day revision plan." A chat lets you narrow in instead of rereading.

## Why the timestamps matter

AI answers are fast, and they are occasionally wrong. The fix is not to trust less but to check faster.

For videos, Ask AI attaches timestamps to its answers. Tap one and the video jumps to that moment, so you can hear the speaker say it in their own words. Ten seconds of the original is usually enough to confirm a point, and it catches the cases where a nuance was flattened.

For anything you will quote, cite or act on, make that check a habit. The [full transcript](https://getsumai.app/features/youtube-transcript/) is there as well when you need the exact wording.

## Chatting with documents

Ask AI works the same way for PDFs and web articles, minus the timestamps. Typical uses:

- **Papers:** "What is the main contribution?" "What are the limitations the authors admit?"
- **Reports:** "What are the three recommendations?" "What evidence supports the second one?"
- **Manuals:** "How do I reset the device?"
- **Course readings:** "Define the key terms in this chapter."

PDFs need selectable text. Scanned pages that are only images cannot be read. See the [PDF summarizer](https://getsumai.app/features/pdf-summarizer/) page for how to tell.

## What Ask AI does not do

Ask AI is a way to question one source. It answers from the video or document in front of you, so it will not tell you whether the speaker is right, what happened after the video was published, or what other sources say. For that, treat the answer as an accurate account of what this source claims, then go and check the claim.

## How to chat with a YouTube video in SumAI

1. **Summarize the video.** Paste a YouTube link into SumAI, or share the video from the YouTube app, and let SumAI create the summary.
2. **Open Ask AI.** Open the summary and choose Ask AI. The field reads "Ask anything about this video".
3. **Ask in plain language.** Type your question the way you would ask a person who has watched the whole thing.
4. **Tap a timestamp to check.** When the answer cites a time, tap it to jump to that part of the video and hear the original.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can I chat with a YouTube video?

Yes. In SumAI, summarize the video and open Ask AI. You can ask questions about the video in plain language, and the answers come from its transcript with timestamps you can tap.

### Where do Ask AI answers come from?

Ask AI answers from the source you summarized: the transcript of a video, or the text of an article or PDF. For videos, answers include timestamps so you can jump to the moment an answer is based on.

### Can I chat with a PDF on iPhone?

Yes. SumAI's Ask AI works with documents as well as videos. Summarize a PDF with selectable text, then ask questions about it in the chat.

### How do I know an answer is right?

Check it against the source. For a video, tap the timestamp in the answer and listen to that passage. For a document, look up the passage in the PDF or article. Any AI can misread or over-simplify, so verify anything you plan to rely on.

### Does the video need captions for Ask AI to work?

Yes. Ask AI works from the transcript, so the video needs captions or auto-generated subtitles, the same requirement as for the summary itself.