The tide rises, the sun sets, and Google pushes AI summaries onto yet another product. This time, it's YouTube that's getting the AI Overview treatment.
The new feature will add “carousels” of clips that AI determines are relevant to the top of certain searches. For now, the feature is only available to a very (very) narrow set of users.
It's a similar feature to the one you've probably seen in Google Search. Typically, if Google finds a YouTube video with a relevant portion to your search, it will present a highlighted clip that you can watch without leaving Google itself. These new YouTube AI carousels are populated with many of these relevant clips, and are paired with generative AI text summaries of the clips.
How to turn on YouTube's AI overviews
Currently, AI-powered carousels are an experimental feature, only available to YouTube Premium subscribers in the United States, and only when you use search on an Android or iOS mobile device. If you want to enable them, follow these steps:
What do you think so far?
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Make sure you're subscribed to YouTube Premium. While I wouldn't recommend starting a whole subscription just to try out a new feature, if you're not subscribed you won't be able to see these. You can check your subscription status in the YouTube mobile app by tapping your profile icon and heading to Settings > Purchases and memberships.
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Make sure you're in the U.S. I especially don't recommend emigrating to another country to try out an experimental AI feature. But on the off chance that your account's location is set to somewhere outside the U.S. (like if you're using a VPN by default), make sure YouTube thinks you're in the U.S.
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Enroll in the carousel experimental feature. You might have already signed up to try experimental features, but this one needs to be turned on directly. Head here or in the YouTube app head to Settings > Try experimental new features. Then, enable “AI-powered search results carousel.”
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Try some searches related to shopping or places. Most searches will still provide the typical results, but Google suggests topics related to shopping (such as “noise cancelling headphones”) or place (such as “best beaches in Hawaii”).
Even if you follow all of these steps, however, you still might not see the new feature. I've been a YouTube Premium subscriber since it was called YouTube Red, enabled this experiment, and tried the example searches (plus many more) and never saw the carousel once. YouTube says the feature is only available to a “randomly selected number of Premium members” so it seems there's no guarantee you'll get to try it out even if you opt in.
If you don't want this feature, the good news is that you don't have to do anything for now. This experimental trial will last until July 30. While that doesn't necessarily mean that it will roll out more widely after that, it's a safe bet that you've at least got another month before it becomes something you have to opt out of.
