YouTube is running a new test to auto-generate video summaries with the use of AI. As noted on the support page, the summaries have begun appearing on the watch and search pages, but are only available for a limited number of English-language videos and viewers.
The video platform explains that the AI auto-generated summaries provide a quick overview of a video, letting the user decide if it’s the right one for them. However, YouTube also notes, “While we hope these summaries are helpful and give you a quick overview of what a video is about, they do not replace video descriptions (which are written by creators!).”
No screenshots of the experiment were shared, so we’re not sure how viewers will differentiate a user-created video summary from one that was written by AI.
AI-powered YouTube video summarizer tools already exist, including Clipnote.ai, Skipit.ai and Scrivvy, among others. However, some YouTube creators say these tools fail to summarize longer videos.
“On my longer videos, it was complete nonsense,” wrote one Reddit user about Clipnote.ai. “It mostly just copied the first lines of what I had in my description. It basically served zero purpose. I was just curious to see if it could write a better description than I did, but it sadly performed horribly.”
Overall, it’s too early to tell how the AI summaries will affect YouTube creators and if it’ll actually help write their video summaries. But we’re curious to see how well the newest experiment performs and if it gets a wider rollout.
The AI auto-generated video summaries join YouTube’s other AI initiatives, such as AI-generated quizzes for educational videos and an AI-powered dubbing tool. Moreover, parent company Google recently announced more AI tools, like an AI-assisted note-taking app and AI-generated backgrounds for Google Meet calls.