YouTube has made a major advancement in incorporating artificial intelligence within its core product. The company posted on its blog on Thursday about two new features, powered by AI: AI Carousels and Conversational AI. Both features enhance content discovery, educational engagement, and the overall user experience. Notably, both features exemplify the smart personalization that YouTube continues to adopt. YouTube Premium users are the first to experience the new features, but they will expand (slowly) to others in the U.S.
AI Carousels Bring Smarter, Contextual Search
Specifically, when users search for queries like “best beaches in Hawaii,” they will see a carousel of summaries, video clips, and descriptions created with the help of AI. These carousels aggregate video clips, contextual details from creators, and related options in one scrollable area. The feature intends to enhance search by opening immediate content previews, rich in content. Currently, AI Carousels are only available to YouTube Premium members in the U.S., including applications like shopping, travel, and local activities.
YouTube Premium Gets Early Access to AI Features
As with many of YouTube’s experimental tools, YouTube Premium users are receiving early access to these AI enhancements. The company continues to test high-touch features with its paying subscribers before considering broader releases. For the Smart Search experience, Premium users benefit from a more intelligent results interface.
The platform doesn’t merely display lists of videos anymore. It now offers curated, in-depth summaries, creator highlights/spotlights, and even highlighted recommendations based on location. The AI engine is capable of processing context and viewer intent in real-time to produce more relevant options. This approach stresses YouTube’s focus on demonstrating that Premium membership is not simply an ad-free version of the rest of the platform.
Conversational AI Expands Beyond Premium
Interestingly, YouTube has also started introducing Conversational AI to select non-Premium users in the United States. Conversational AI has thus far been limited to Premium users only; in terms of UI/UX, non-Premium users will be able to ask follow-up questions, quiz themselves on a topic, or receive personalized video recommendations, all embedded within the application interface. Through Conversational AI, the viewer could ask something like, about the documentary about coral reefs, “What causes coral bleaching?” and the viewer would receive an answer to that very question along with relevant embedded video links.
Essentially, the goal of Conversational AI is to create dialogue-based learning, as well as introduce a more dynamic and potentially less daunting experience for informal learners engaging with the platform. YouTube shared that the Conversational AI experience has already been embraced by its Premium users, specifically in regard to playing a role in educational use.
YouTube Pushes AI to the Forefront of Discovery
The new features demonstrate YouTube’s commitment to increasingly integrating artificial intelligence into user content interaction. Smart Search and AI Carousels represent a departure from passive content browsing to proactive content exploration with the assistance and uniqueness of AI-guided interfaces. Traditional search requires metadata and titles to surface results and provide a level of relevance, while AI Carousels utilize visual content and surrounding context to provide higher levels of relevance.
By launching in phases and tying new features to YouTube Premium, YouTube strikes a proper balance between being on the cutting edge of innovation while maintaining control over the experimental aspect of newness. The phased launches allow YouTube to test it out, improve it, and eventually scale its initial use of AI to serve users while ensuring the quality remains intact, does not overwhelm users, and does not miss the opportunity to iterate a best-in-class experience. With its updates, it is transforming passive viewership into a together, intelligent interaction with you and your content through machine learning.
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