Google Rolls Out AI Search on YouTube: Premium Test

YouTube Gets an AI-Powered Search Upgrade

Google is bringing the power of artificial intelligence to YouTube search, following the significant AI transformation already seen in its core web search experience. The aim? To provide users with more direct and potentially “zero-click” answers, leveraging AI to quickly surface relevant information.

This ambitious AI push includes a new feature being rolled out initially as a limited test: an AI-generated results carousel.

How the New AI Search Works

Positioned prominently at the top of the search results page, this new AI feature presents a collection of videos highly relevant to a user’s query. Crucially, alongside the video thumbnails, it provides an AI-generated summary for each video. This summary is designed to extract the most pertinent information, theoretically allowing users to grasp key details without needing to watch the full video. Users can still tap the thumbnails to play videos directly from the carousel if they wish.

Limited Rollout: Premium Members First

For now, this specific AI results carousel is an experimental test and is only available to YouTube Premium subscribers. Premium members interested in trying it out must actively enable the feature via YouTube’s experimental features page.

The initial scope of this test is also narrow:

Limited to the YouTube mobile app.
Processes only English-language videos.

Triggers only for specific search categories, such as shopping, places, and activities. Google suggests queries like “best beaches in Hawaii” or “noise canceling headphones.”

This phased and limited rollout mirrors the initial debut of AI Overviews in Google’s general web search, which started with a small subset of queries but has since expanded dramatically across users and query types globally.

Beyond the Carousel: AI Chatbot for Everyone

Alongside the debut of the AI search carousel, Google is also expanding the availability of its conversational AI chatbot within YouTube. Previously restricted to Premium members, this chatbot is now being rolled out to all YouTube users. This feature allows viewers to ask questions about a video’s content, get recommendations for similar material, or explore related concepts through a conversational interface.

Google has also indicated that more AI features are in development to enhance the YouTube experience further.

Part of Google’s Broader AI Strategy

This move on YouTube is part of Google’s extensive and rapidly scaling integration of AI across its products. Recent announcements, particularly at Google I/O 2025, highlighted massive advancements in AI models like Gemini and their application in Search (AI Mode, Deep Search, Search Live), generative tools (Veo, Imagen), and more. Google claims AI Overviews in web search have already boosted search engagement, driving over a 10% increase in usage for relevant queries in major markets and reaching 1.5 billion monthly users globally.

This broader strategy also includes other AI integrations within YouTube itself, such as bringing Google Lens directly into YouTube Shorts. Currently in beta, Google Lens in Shorts allows users to pause a video and use visual search to identify objects, landmarks, or other elements within the frame, getting more information overlaid on the video.

Potential Impact on Creators

While Google frames these features as improving user experience and efficiency, the introduction of AI-generated summaries at the top of results raises significant concerns, particularly for content creators. The “zero-click” trend seen with AI Overviews in web search, where users get answers directly in the results page without clicking through to a website, could potentially reduce clicks and views on individual YouTube videos.

Fewer clicks and full video views could impact creator engagement (comments, likes, subscriptions) and, crucially, their ability to grow their channels and earn revenue through monetization. Critics point out that Google is using creator content to train its AI models and generate the very summaries that might reduce interaction with the original videos.

Concerns among publishers about AI Overviews in web search leading to traffic and revenue loss (with some estimates suggesting over $2 billion in potential publisher losses) highlight the potential challenges for content creators as AI becomes more central to search and discovery platforms like YouTube. The fact that Google has already started incorporating “Sponsored” ads directly within AI Overviews on web search also raises questions about how monetization will evolve within YouTube’s new AI search features.

What’s Next?

While the AI results carousel is currently a limited, opt-in test for Premium users and restricted in scope, its presence signals Google’s intention to integrate AI more deeply into YouTube search. Given the trajectory of AI Overviews in general search, it’s plausible this feature could eventually expand to more users, more queries, and potentially influence how content is discovered and consumed on the platform, bringing both benefits to users and challenges to the creator ecosystem.