YouTube is introducing innovative AI-powered features to enhance user interaction and engagement on its platform. The company is currently experimenting with a conversational AI tool and AI-generated comment summaries, aiming to provide users with more relevant and insightful content.
The new conversational AI tool allows users to ask questions about the videos they are watching. Accessed via the ‘Ask’ button beneath select videos, it provides answers about the content without interrupting playback. This feature is designed for users seeking more information about the videos they consume, enabling them to dive deeper into the content effortlessly. The AI assistant, similar to Chat GPT, offers recommendations for related content and even quizzes viewers on educational videos. The tool’s responses are generated by large language models, drawing information from both YouTube and the web. Currently, this feature is available to a limited subset of users in the United States and is limited to YouTube Premium members on Android devices. However, YouTube plans to expand its availability to more Premium subscribers in the coming weeks.
In addition to the conversational AI tool, YouTube is experimenting with AI-generated comment summaries. This feature organizes comments into easily digestible themes, allowing creators and viewers to quickly grasp the discussions happening within a video’s comment section. The summaries focus on relevant topics, ensuring that users can engage with the conversation more effectively. YouTube emphasizes that these summaries will not include data from unpublished messages, comments held for review, or those containing blocked words. Creators also have the option to delete individual comments categorized under specific topics. This experimental feature is currently available on a small number of videos in English, particularly those with large comment sections. YouTube Premium subscribers can opt-in to test this feature through the YouTube Experiments page
