YouTube lets viewers write their own feeds, built by Gemini
Custom feeds turn a typed description into a pinned tab on the home page, and reach web and mobile next month.
YouTube said at its Made on YouTube event that viewers will be able to describe the videos they want in their own words and have Google's Gemini build a feed around the description. The feeds appear as tabs pinned to the top of the home page, separate from the main recommendation feed, and roll out on web and mobile from October.
TechCrunch and Wired both reported the feature on Tuesday. A user may ask for "video podcasts to watch during your 30-minute train commute" or "relaxing commentary videos to unwind with", TechCrunch said, and can say what to exclude and what to put first. Users can make more than one feed.
How well it works is not established, and nobody outside YouTube has used it yet. Emily Moxley, YouTube's vice president of product management for viewer AI, put the corpus at more than 20 billion videos and said a viewer is "always one search away from a treasure trove of topics".
The same event brought creator tools. YouTube is adding features to generate ideas and to test thumbnails inside its Studio app, TechCrunch said, alongside an assistant for script analysis and tools aimed at microdramas. The Wall Street Journal framed that set as part of a fight with Netflix over top creators.
Spotify launched its Taste Profile in the United States on the same day, letting Premium subscribers steer their recommendations. Bluesky, Threads, Instagram and X have each offered some form of user-built feed before this.