YouTube's New AI Search Feature Has a Catch That Could Affect Content Creators: 'Google Is Shifting' YouTube's new feature summarizes videos with AI — so you don't even have to watch.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- YouTube is testing AI overviews this week with YouTube Premium members in the U.S.
- The AI overviews populate at the top of YouTube search results and feature a carousel with multiple relevant videos, along with AI summaries of each.
- The AI tool means you may not have to click into a YouTube video to find the answer to your search.
YouTube is testing out a new AI search feature to help users find content faster — but the tool could negate the need to click into a YouTube video and give creators watch time.
The AI overviews, which YouTube introduced on Thursday to Premium members in the U.S., will populate at the top of the results page in response to a search query. The AI tool will present suggested video clips in a carousel format, alongside brief AI summaries of the videos.
For example, if a Premium user searches for "best beaches in Hawaii" on YouTube, the results will display a carousel with AI-suggested video clips and AI-written summaries of each video.
There's a catch that could impact content creators: AI summaries will extract the information most relevant to the search query, so users can potentially find the answers to their query in a written AI summary without even clicking into the full video. Users can also tap video thumbnails to play AI-recommended video clips directly from the carousel, reducing the need to navigate away from the AI search page to watch the entire video.
So while YouTube's AI search results could make it easier for users to find what they are looking for, it could also mark an unwanted change for creators who depend on user engagement to earn money on the platform.
The new feature is similar to AI overviews from YouTube's parent company, Google. AI overviews, which Google introduced last year, provide AI summaries of search results at the top of Google Search.
The tool has had a devastating effect on search traffic for news publishers. A Wall Street Journal report earlier this month showed that Google's AI overviews drastically reduced traffic for publishers. Business Insider, for example, saw its traffic decline by 55% from April 2022 to April 2025, causing the publication to cut about 21% of its staff last month.
Related: Google's AI Overview Has Changed Since Its Debut, and These Websites Have Benefitted the Most
Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, told The Wall Street Journal that "Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine" and that publishers "have to develop new strategies" in response.
For now, the new feature is limited to searches on shopping, travel, or activities in specific locations. Premium members can access the feature by enabling it on YouTube's experimental page. The page shows that AI search results are available until July 30 and are only available on iOS and Android for English-language videos.
If YouTube were a stand-alone business, it would be worth up to $550 billion, making it one of the largest media companies in the world, according to analysts at research institute MoffettNathanson. Similarweb estimates that YouTube is the second-most visited site in the world, behind Google.
