YouTube Looking To Incorporate AI To Summarize Videos

Regular users are drawn to YouTube for its large content, from entertainment and tutorials to vlogs. For musicians, YouTube serves as a powerful tool to connect with fans and promote music videos. The platform offers convenience and variety, allowing users to explore new things.

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Ever seen TL;DR somewhere on Reddit or on other platforms? Well it’s an acronym for “Too Lazy Didn’t Read”. This phrase is typically used when netizens are given a short summary of a very long story. To whoever has written a TL;DR, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for saving us the heavy reading. Well in the world of videos, there is TLDW, which as you can probably guess, stands for Too Lazy Didn’t Watch. Same concept, different style of origin. 

In the YouTube space, users have about 3 things to consider before clicking on a link to watch a video. These would refer to the thumbnail, title, and description. Commonly, people get a little misled by these things and end up disappointed or unsatisfied after spending some time watching a video only to not witness what they were expecting. Especially in tutorials or educational videos, users are usually expecting to learn or gain something specific out of watching a video.

With that, YouTube and Google has come up with an ingenious idea to explore incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into its platform to essentially summarize videos so users can determine if a video suits their desires or expectations. 

What Are These AI Generated Summaries And What Will They Look Like?

It’s not what you may think! These short descriptions will NOT replace video descriptions made by creators. Instead, it would have its own space. Since this feature is still in its testing phases, the specifics on how these AI generated short summaries will present itself has not been set in stone nor has it been officially revealed.

In fact, YouTube themselves have encouraged users that have experienced these summaries to share their feedback. Unfortunately, there has not been any screenshots or evidence provided by these lucky users as to what their experience was. 

This feature was originally introduced and rolled out on the 31st of July 2023 and is currently only available on selected videos and accessible to some lucky users. Since it is still very much in its early phases, it is also only available to some English-language videos. 

This is of course, YouTube after all, the biggest video streaming platform in the world. They have to be careful on how they create and launch a new feature so that they can refine and craft the best experiences for their users until it finally becomes ready. 

Implications On Creators And Marketers: Will It Affect Discoverability? 

While it may sound like a very enticing thing to the average viewer, it could be a little bit of a scratch on the head for creators and marketers. Among the many questions raised, how much control would creators have over these AI generated summaries? Would creators be able to edit these summaries? Will it somehow affect video visibility or rankings? What if it were to generate inaccurate summaries?

All these questions are fairly raised because it would, in the end, have an effect on creators. For better or worse, this development is likely to cause huge drops or raises in views. Especially in the world we live in now where the average person’s attention span is getting shorter, these summaries may just become a first consideration to users’ decision to click on a video.