YouTube Starts Testing AI Overviews in Search Results

Google has started testing new AI Overviews in YouTube’s search results that will highlight relevant clips from videos related to search queries (via Search Engine Land). The experimental feature is currently available for a small number of YouTube Premium users in the US, but it will only work with some search queries in English.

“We’re experimenting with a new video results carousel that appears after entering certain search queries. This new feature will use AI to highlight clips from videos that will be most helpful for your search query, providing another way to discover content when searching on YouTube as well as discover topics and information related to your search query,” the company explained in the announcement.

If you’re in the US and have YouTube Premium, Google said that you’re more likely to see these AI Overviews if you’re searching for travel information or product details. Because the feature is experimental, Google will let users send their feedback on highlighted clips with a thumbs-up/thumbs-down system.

Google first introduced AI Overviews on its search engine, where users in select markets can now see ChatGPT-like answers at the top of the search results page. AI Overviews have received a lot of criticism at launch due to hallucination problems and possible negative impact on traffic for websites.

These new AI Overviews on YouTube work differently as Google isn’t summarizing information from multiple YouTube videos: This is more about helping users save time by showing them the clips that are likely to answer their query. While we’re still at the experimental stage, this is certainly going to raise some questions for creators as they may soon need to change their content to optimize their chances of seeing their videos show up in these AI Overviews.