At its annual Made on YouTube event, YouTube offered an early look at the features that will arrive on the platform in the coming months. The announcements include a heavy dose of artificial intelligence for both viewers and creators, but they also bring several non-AI updates that could change how people discover videos, comment, message, and watch live streams.
The headline is simple: YouTube promises custom feeds and a lot more AI later this year. Below are the key facts, followed by a closer look at what each change could mean for the platform.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Custom Feeds will let users add new tabs to YouTube by typing a description and letting the platform populate the page with videos.
- GIF comments are finally coming to regular videos and Shorts, and direct messages will gain group chat support in select countries.
- Ask YouTube and Ask Music are expanding with conversational product reviews, organized search recommendations, product comparison tables, playlist editing, and artist information.
- Your Podcast Lineup will provide a weekly spoken preview of recommended podcasts for YouTube Music subscribers.
- Creators will receive Gemini-based conversational editing in the YouTube Create app, expanded A/B testing with up to three versions, and an Ask Studio tool for pacing, framing, and thumbnail suggestions.
- Live matchmaking will merge streams from different creators early next year, connected to an interactive Live Showdown leaderboard.
- Live autodubbing will allow real-time translation of live streams so international viewers can watch in their preferred language starting early next year.
Custom Feeds Aim to Fix a Long-Criticized Homepage
The design of YouTube's homepage feed has come under fire for years. Critics argue that algorithmic recommendations can trap viewers in loops, prioritize sensational content, and make it difficult to find specific interests on demand. Custom Feeds are YouTube's answer to that criticism. The feature lets viewers create new tabs inside the YouTube interface filled with content of their choosing. To build a feed, a user types a description, and YouTube populates the page with matching videos. The description can then be refined, and users can rate video suggestions to tune the results. Google says viewers will be able to save multiple feeds, though it has not specified exactly how many. The feature will roll out soon in the United States for web, mobile, and television users.
This change could shift some control from the recommendation algorithm back to the viewer. Instead of relying on a single home feed shaped by watch history, users could maintain separate feeds for different moods, hobbies, or research needs. A viewer might create one feed for cooking, another for mechanical keyboards, and a third for live concerts. The ability to rate suggestions suggests YouTube wants the feeds to improve over time, much like a personalized playlist that updates automatically. However, the feature also raises questions about moderation, filter bubbles, and how much users will understand about why certain videos appear. If Custom Feeds rely on the same recommendation systems, they may reproduce some of the same biases and viral dynamics that already shape YouTube.
Comments, GIFs, and Group Chats
Interacting on YouTube will also change later this year. The platform will finally add the option to post GIFs in comments, a feature that has apparently been a common request for some time. The comment box will let users search for popular animated thumbnails and post them on both regular videos and YouTube Shorts. This could make comments more expressive and playful, but it could also create new challenges for moderation. Animated reactions are easy to spam, and they can be used to harass or derail conversations. YouTube will need to balance fun and safety as GIF comments become widely available.
The direct messaging feature is adding support for group chat. At launch, group chat will only be available in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Brazil, and some European countries. This move makes YouTube more social and could help creators build communities directly on the platform. It also puts YouTube in competition with established messaging apps. Privacy, safety, and moderation will be important as group chats scale, especially for younger users who may spend significant time on YouTube.
Ask YouTube and Ask Music Become More Prominent
YouTube is likely to nudge users to chat with a robot more often. The AI-powered Ask YouTube feature is not new, but it is getting several new capabilities that will make it more prominent across the platform. The AI will take on a conversational role in product review videos, allowing viewers to type or use voice commands to get more information about a product. In search, Ask YouTube may offer organized video recommendations and product comparison tables. This could change how people research purchases, compare products, and decide what to buy. It could also open new monetization opportunities for creators and advertisers, while raising questions about trust, disclosure, and the accuracy of AI-generated summaries.
The music version of this AI is also expanding. Ask Music is getting more prominent placement in the YouTube Music app, right at the top where search used to be. It recently moved to a tab at the bottom, but now it will be more visible. Ask Music can create or edit playlists and tell users about an artist. It will also surface suggestions throughout the app, such as when a listener is creating a mix. For subscribers, this could make music discovery feel more conversational and personalized. For YouTube, it could deepen engagement and keep listeners inside the app longer.
YouTube also promises an AI-powered Your Podcast Lineup feature in the coming months. This is a weekly spoken preview of recommended podcasts available through YouTube Music. These AI features are limited to YouTube Music subscribers and will begin rolling out later this year. Podcasts have become a major battleground for audio platforms, and a spoken preview could help YouTube Music differentiate itself from competitors. It could also give podcasters another way to reach listeners who prefer curated recommendations over manual searching.
Creator Changes Could Mean Changing Content
According to Google, YouTube creators are very invested in AI tools. The company claims that a large majority of United States video posters have used AI to create or edit content in the past year. YouTube will give them even more opportunities to use AI with a new Gemini-based conversational editing feature in the YouTube Create app. After cutting together different versions of a video with AI, expanded A/B testing will let creators run up to three different versions to find the one that gets the most engagement. This could help creators optimize titles, thumbnails, pacing, and edits, but it could also lead to more formulaic content if everyone follows the same AI-driven suggestions.
A new tool called Ask Studio can also help with recommendations for things like pacing, framing, and thumbnails. It will even generate those thumbnails using AI. This tool can run in the background to analyze older videos and suggest ways to boost them for more views. For creators with large back catalogs, this could be a powerful way to revive older content. For smaller creators, it could lower the barrier to professional-looking edits and packaging. At the same time, the use of AI in editing and thumbnails raises concerns about authenticity, disclosure, and the pressure to constantly optimize for engagement.
Live Streaming Gets Matchmaking and Competition
The content seen on YouTube may also change because of new creator features. YouTube previously rolled out the option for two different creators to share a single livestream. Early next year, YouTube will use live matchmaking to merge streams from people who might not even know each other. This could create unexpected collaborations and introduce creators to new audiences. It could also produce awkward pairings and moderation headaches, since live streams are difficult to control in real time.
These shared streams will connect to a new feature called Live Showdown, which is billed as an interactive audience experience. Streamers will compete with a live leaderboard to see who can get the most chats, gifts, and Super Chats. In practice, whoever gets viewers to spend the most money wins. Critics may note that the real competition is for viewer spending, with the platform and top creators benefiting most. Live Showdown could make streams more engaging and gamified, but it could also encourage spending and competition in ways that some viewers find manipulative.
Live Autodubbing Could Expand Global Reach
The last creator update could make more content accessible on YouTube. The company says 40 percent of live watch time comes from viewers outside the creator's home country. YouTube will support this trend with live autodubbing. Starting early next year, video makers will be able to enable real-time translation of their streams so viewers in other countries can watch live in their preferred language. YouTube did not specify how this will work behind the scenes, but Google recently released an improved Gemini translation model. So autodubbing will probably use some version of that technology.
Live autodubbing could be transformative for international creators and audiences. It could help streamers reach viewers who do not speak their language, increase watch time, and build global communities. It could also raise questions about translation accuracy, latency, and the loss of a creator's original voice and tone. If the translation is poor, it could confuse viewers or misrepresent what a creator said. If it works well, it could make live content more accessible than ever before. For YouTube, the feature fits a broader strategy of using AI to remove language barriers and keep viewers engaged across borders. The rollout will begin early next year, and its success will depend on how seamlessly the translation integrates into live streams without disrupting the creator or the audience.
Source:Ars Technica News