AI Overviews Are Coming To YouTube In New Test

Google is bringing its AI overviews to its sister platform, YouTube. 

In an announcement, the company said it was testing showing AI overviews similar to those already seen in Google search results. These overviews will choose the most relevant clips from videos it believes are relevant to a search.

How Will This Impact YouTube Click-Through Rates

Despite seemingly trying to avoid the issue during a recent earnings call, Google can’t hide that its AI overviews are reducing click-through rates in search results and sending less traffic to other websites. 

With this in mind, it is reasonable to be concerned that YouTube is similarly pulling users away from fully watching videos from creators in a way that may reduce viewership and revenue to content creators.

What To Expect From YouTube AI Overviews

For the current test, only a small group of U.S. YouTube premium features will be eligible to see AI overviews for English-language search results. 

When searching, these users will be shown a collection of relevant videos and highlighted clips that it believes are most relevant. The clips will be shown in a carousel within the search results, letting users quickly browse the selection. 

For now, YouTube is using AI overviews on two specific types of searches:

• Product research (such as users looking for info about the best noise-cancelling headphones)
• Travel and local discovery (for example, when users search for information about museums to visit in a specific city)

Throughout the test, YouTube says it will be collecting user feedback which it will use to determine whether to expand this feature to more users. 

For more, you can read the announcement for AI overviews on YouTube here.