The tool doesn't always show the right things on Google search.
If you’re Googling lately, there’s a good chance you’ve seen an AI Overview in your search results. This tool, powered by Google’s gemini, attempts to save you a few clicks by pulling together information from the links that appear in your search results and presenting it in an easily digestible form. However, these overviews are often inaccurate and the tool has been plagued with hallucinations since it launched (to varying degrees of amusement).
Now Google is extending the tool to YouTube, with a test that sees a small portion of premium YouTube members in the US being shown video versions of AI overviews on select English search queries. While Google search will show LLM-generated text summaries, YouTube’s AI overviews will be more of a highlight reel for select videos.
In a post on the YouTube Community forums, Google said, “This new feature will leverage AI to identify key moments from videos that are most relevant to your search.” This will likely come up when you’re looking for more information about a product you’re considering buying (like “best noise cancelling headphones”) or when you’re looking for more information about an area and things to do there (as in “museums in San Francisco”).
However, this move raises some questions about the revenue model for creators on YouTube and how AI-generated clip reels would impact their earnings. A major concern with AI overview in search is that Google’s own summary takes up traffic that would otherwise go to the publications featured in the search results. And now the same concerns are likely to be visited on video content creators as Google brings these tools to YouTube.
Google will be seeking feedback on the overviews from YouTube Premium members, who can vote with a thumbs up or thumbs down on the AI-generated clip highlights. It’s not clear how long Google intends to keep this pilot running or whether it has designs on bringing YouTube’s AI overview beyond premium subscribers in the future.
