After testing back in March, YouTube is rolling out their new AI ‘Jump Ahead’ feature for Premium subscribers, making it easier to skim videos and find the best bits.
The feature works as an AI-powered recommendation system that analyzes patterns in viewer behavior to help users skip to the most popular parts with just a double tap.
The double tab is used on videos currently to skip time and jump between chapters if the creator has implemented those, but it’s not always been the easiest to use and can appear quite clunky. This is especially so when using the tool on a mobile device.
On YouTube’s Creator Insider channel, the ‘small experiment’ was first announced on March 19 and the current format for skipping was described as a reason why the AI version has been experimented with.
“…Constantly tapping can be tedious. We’re running a very small experiment in the US for a premium-only feature that combines user watch behavior data and AI to help identify the next best point a viewer typically wants to skip ahead to.”
While the feature was merely being tested a couple of months ago, it’s now in full action for full experiment mode. This is available for users of the YouTube Android app who pay for the Premium service.
YouTube Premium is a paid-for membership that allows people to watch ad-free and download videos to watch when offline.
It only applies to English videos at the moment, but the experiment could be rolled out further in the future.
How does YouTube’s Jump Ahead AI feature work?
The double-tapping process will see an upgrade for Premium subscribers who take part in the experiment, as this will now bring up a pill-shaped button that says ‘Jump Ahead.’ This will move the video along to where other users commonly skip to.
“The way it works is, if a viewer is double tapping to skip ahead on an eligible segment, we’ll show a jump ahead button that will take them to the next point in the video that we think they’re aiming for.”
Creators will be able to use the feature too when watching their own videos, including those who don’t have YouTube Premium.
Featured Image: Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
