YouTube is testing AI-generated video summaries that will appear on search and watch pages. These summaries aim to provide a “quick overview” of a video, helping viewers decide if it’s worth watching. However, YouTube is careful to emphasize that these AI summaries do not replace the creators’ own video descriptions.
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The test is currently limited to a select number of English-language videos and will only be visible to certain viewers. The summaries will show up on mobile devices for how-to videos, shopping videos, and vlogs, and will be available to viewers worldwide.
YouTube has been introducing various preview features recently. For instance, premium subscribers can now lock the screen during playback to prevent accidental commands, and there’s an option to turn Shorts comments into new short-form clips.
This AI-generated summary experiment comes almost three years after YouTube first began testing AI-produced video chapters. It’s part of a broader push towards generative AI at Google, with the tech giant deploying its Bard chatbot and using generative technology for various applications, including producing spreadsheet templates and news articles (although not always for public consumption).
Given that over 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, it’s clear that human curation alone is not feasible. However, the question remains whether the AI summaries are accurate enough. Google has warned that generative systems like Bard may have inaccuracies and misinformation, and it’s yet to be seen how well the YouTube experiment will perform in practice.
