YouTube may be the most-watched video platform on planet earth, but it is not wrestling on its laurels.
The Google-owned platform this week announced a barrage of AI-powered features and tools, for both viewers and creators, that it is betting can help people make more content faster, and help viewers more specifically find what they are looking for.
The company announced the tools at its annual Made on YouTube event in New York City, with CEO Neal Mohan taking the stage in Google’s office in a former shipping pier on the Hudson River.
“Since the start of the year, we’ve launched over 3,000 product updates and improvements, keeping up with evolving viewer tastes and increasing creator ambitions,” Mohan said. “This is what it looks like to innovate in the YouTube era, an era where entertainment is built from the ground up by creators and the communities that fuel them.”
For YouTube viewers, the biggest change will be the introduction of Custom Feeds, which will let users type what they are interested in in (think “help me find new DIY creators” or “witty podcasts for my 30 minute commute”), with the platform creating new tabs that will refresh with options in those defined areas.
The platform is also adding new functionality to Ask YouTube, enabling followup questions and more specific search capabilities.
On the creator front, some of the announcements drew applause and buzz from many of the creators in attendance.
YouTube Studio can now suggest pacing and structure for videos, and help creators automatically A/B test thumbnails. Soon it will allow for A/B testing of videos, enabling different versions of content for different audiences.
It is also rolling out a conversational editing assistant, letting users lean on YouTube’s apps to help it edit content using natural language prompts. Opt-in AI-powered comment moderation is also in the works, as is a voice detection tool that will join its current likeness detection program.
“Our approach has always been to use AI to empower human creativity, and to do it responsibly,” Mohan told the crowd.
