YouTube Is Testing Its Own Version Of Google's AI Overviews

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Summary

YouTube is now testing AI Overviews with a new video results carousel after certain search queries.
The feature will surface relevant video snippets, saving users the hassle of watching entire videos.
Overviews will focus on product information or tourist spots, yielding more accurate results than text summaries.

Google launched AI Overviews in Search at I/O last year. Reception has been mixed. Screenshots of inaccurate summaries were widely circulated shortly after launch, including examples of Google’s AI interpreting jokes and sarcasm as earnest advice, telling users that adding glue to pizza can help keep cheese in place. AI Overviews seem to have improved over time, though, and now, Google is preparing to bring the concept to YouTube.

According to a post on the YouTube Help forum (via Search Engine Land), AI Overviews began appearing in YouTube search results for some users this week. While AI Overviews in Google Search aim to provide a text summary of the information returned in search results, AI Overviews on YouTube will work a little differently. YouTube describes the implementation as “a new video results carousel that appears after entering certain search queries.” The carousel will contain AI-curated clips that YouTube hopes will be helpful, based on your search query.

YouTube says that these overviews will show up most often on searches for product information (for example, “best noise cancelling headphones”), or when you’re looking up information about places or things to do (eg, “museums to visit in San Francisco”).

Google search bar with warning signs around it and a glitch effect.

A small test for now

Surfacing snippets of human-generated content rather than an AI-generated summary seems like it should help YouTube’s take on AI Overviews provide more useful (and accurate) information. I have to think the videos YouTube pulls clips from will end up netting lower views overall; it’ll be interesting to see how creators on the platform react to this feature.

YouTube’s AI Overviews are currently appearing for “a small number of YouTube Premium members in the US for some English search queries,” so you’re not likely to have come across this particular experiment yet. It’s unclear when or whether AI Overviews for YouTube will roll out widely, but Google is collecting feedback from users who do have access. It’s possible we’ll hear more about the new feature at Google I/O next month.