YouTube Is Testing AI-Powered Video Summaries
The feature is pretty much the same as the Google AI search summary.
Google’s AI Overviews have already become a huge part of search, reportedly serving more than 1.5 billion users monthly across 100+ countries. Now, the tech giant is bringing that same AI feature to YouTube.
The new feature, also called AI Overviews, aims to make video discovery quicker and smarter. Instead of scrolling through a sea of clickbait thumbnails and vague titles, users will see a carousel of AI-selected clips right at the top of their search results. Say you’re looking up “What happened at CES 2025?”, rather than clicking through multiple reviews, the AI surfaces the most useful moments from different videos, saving you time and clicks.
Louis Eriakha
This feature is still in early testing, available only to a small group of YouTube Premium users in the U.S. It currently supports English-language searches in shopping and travel categories. Testers can give feedback with a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down, helping YouTube fine-tune how the AI selects and displays these clips.
As with many AI features, this update could seriously improve the user experience, but it’s also raising alarm bells in the creator community. The concern is that if viewers can get all the info they need from quick AI-generated snippets, they might not bother watching full videos. That means lower watch time, fewer ad impressions, less engagement, and ultimately, less revenue for creators.
It's a concern that mirrors what publishers have said about Google's AI Overviews in Search, where full articles often get bypassed in favour of summarised answers.
Louis Eriakha
To be fair, YouTube has emphasised that this is all still experimental. And they’ve pointed out other AI features they’re building to support creators like auto-dubbing, trend-based content ideas, and AI-powered editing tools. So there’s a chance this could end up being more helpful than harmful. But with the platform’s future increasingly tied to AI, creators are right to keep a close eye.
In the end, AI Overviews could make video searches faster and less frustrating for users. But YouTube isn’t Google Search—video content works differently from text. YouTube isn’t just a search engine with thumbnails, it’s a platform built on engagement. If AI Overviews tip that balance, the effects could be much bigger than just faster search results.
