Ever since ChatGPT’s generative AI capabilities captivated people around the world, big tech companies have been clawing at every opportunity to enhance their current offerings with AI. Google is hard at work as well, withAI creeping into Workspace utilitiesjust as much as they are in YouTube’s experimental features. The video-streaming platform’s latest experiment dabbles with comment section summarization and a conversational chatbot to cure your indecision.
In the past year alone, Google has given us access to several experimental features on YouTube, all powered by AI. For instance, we got to seeAI-generated video summaries— auto-generated snippets of text telling you what the video is about. The feature stands out from the creator’s own summary of the video and the title. Even on sister service YouTube Music,AI-generated playlist cover imageswere available as a brief experiment. It allowed users to pick distinct art styles, so they personalize playlists and make them instantly recognizable. Google recently announced it is trying summarization in one more aspect of YouTube — the comments section.
Although the dislike counter was a helpful metric for whether a video was worth your time,it doesn’t exist anymore. Titles can be misleading, and are optimized to rank higher in search results. This leaves viewers sifting through thousands of comments to assess a video’s watch-worthiness, which usually skyrockets if the content revolves around one of their topics of interest.
The new experiment summarizes comments by topic
Thelatest YouTube experimentadds aTopicsbutton just above the comments section. AI excels at summarization and data organization, and this button groups comments based on the topic they mention. Viewers can then expand individual comment topic sections to see comments from other viewers. YouTube imagines creators could use the AI’s analysis to find popular topics among audiences and build future content around those ideas.
YouTube is also testing a Bard-like AI chatbot which can answer questions stemming from the video. Using the chatbot does not interrupt playback, and is quite like using Bard in split-window mode. If you have access, you just need to tap theAskbutton underneath a video. Thechatbot can do everythingfrom video summarization to recommending related content. Google says you can even expect quizzes under some academic videos, to help reinforce your understanding of the discussed subject. Moreover, interaction is made easier with the option of a few one-tap prompts you can use to kick off the conversation.
YouTube is also testing an Ask button that summons an AI chatbot
Testing is extremely limited, but we hope Google gathers adequate insight to further its research and make YouTube more captivating and informative. Meanwhile, the company is alsohiking Premium subscription prices and banning ad blockersand alternative services likeYouTube Vanced, this time hoping toshut it down for good.
