Google is conducting trials on two experimental artificial intelligence (AI) systems for both creators and viewers on its popular YouTube video sharing platform. The initial experiment involves an AI tool that efficiently organizes extensive comment sections of long-format videos into easily digestible themes. This tool empowers content creators to categorize their comment sections by topic, highlight specific comments, and even remove comments related to a specific theme. Currently, this trial is in progress and is being tested on a select number of videos in the English language that possess significant comment sections. Participants in YouTube's experimental features program, particularly the YouTube Premium subscribers, have the option to opt in for this experiment.
The second experiment focuses on a generative AI chatbot, akin to Google's Bard or OpenAI's ChatGPT, intended to engage with viewers while they are watching videos. The primary objective of this chatbot is to provide users with a deeper understanding of the content they are consuming by responding to queries related to the video, suggesting related content, and enhancing interactivity without disrupting the video playback. Additionally, the chatbot can create quizzes for users watching educational videos, thereby fostering a more immersive viewing experience. This experiment is currently accessible to a limited group of users for specific videos and is set to be more broadly available in the upcoming weeks, initially for Premium subscribers in the U.S. on the Android platform. Google has emphasized that these features are experimental and may not always be entirely accurate. As the platform tests these new tools, it must navigate through the unpredictable outputs often produced by generative AI systems.
