YouTube’s big AI upgrade: 3 upcoming features to make videos more fun

One of these features uses AI to skip straight to the good parts in boring, lengthy videos.

YouTube is going bonkers with AI. (Image: Zohaib Ahmed/The Indian Express)

YouTube is giving artificial intelligence a bigger role in enhancing the viewer experience. The video-sharing platform is currently testing three new AI-powered features aimed at making it easier to navigate lengthy videos, engage with comments, and learn from educational content. Let’s take a closer look.

Skip to the good parts

This experimental feature analyses how people watch videos to identify the most compelling segments automatically. When you double-tap the screen to skip ahead, a button will appear, allowing you to jump straight to a highlighted section determined by AI as potentially interesting.

For now, this AI video navigation tool is only available to a limited number of YouTube Premium subscribers in the US. However, it could eventually become a game-changer for those seeking a more efficient viewing experience.

Categorised comments

(Image: YouTube)

Another AI test involves organising comments on lengthy videos into themes and topics. This tool gives creators a bird’s eye view of what their audience is discussing, making it easier to join conversations or generate new content ideas based on viewer feedback.

If you’re part of the experiment, you’ll notice a “Sort by Topics” option in the comment section on eligible videos. Creators can then browse through AI-generated comment summaries, removing unwanted topics by deleting associated comments.

AI chatbot to answer questions related to videos

(Image: YouTube)

The third AI feature aims to foster a more interactive and educational viewing experience. While watching a video, viewers can tap an “Ask” button to access a conversational AI tool that provides answers, quizzes, and related content recommendations without interrupting playback.

For academic videos, this AI assistant can even guide users through a learning journey by offering quizzes and responses designed to deepen their understanding of the subject matter.

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None of these AI capabilities are publicly available but Premium members can already opt-in to test some of these features.