YouTube Premium users will soon enjoy familiar features from long-form content now available in Shorts. Smart Downloads and Picture-in-Picture are being extended to YouTube Shorts, alongside the expanded availability of the Jump Ahead feature.
For the uninitiated, Smart Downloads automatically downloads recommended videos to your library for offline viewing. Picture-in-Picture, already popular with long-form videos, minimizes the current video into a small floating window.
The Jump Ahead feature, designed to skip to the most relevant parts of a video, has completed testing and is now being gradually introduced. Powered by Google’s machine learning and viewer data, Jump Ahead identifies key segments for efficient viewing. This feature will initially be available exclusively to YouTube Premium users.
Google is rolling out experimental features on YouTube aimed at enhancing user interaction. Premium users in the US can now access features that summarize comments and utilize an AI chatbot for video-related queries, with availability expanding to other countries soon.
Additionally, YouTube has introduced a controversial new user interface. The update relocates the comments section beside the video title and description, positioned on the left rather than below the video. These changes are part of efforts to encourage more users to subscribe to YouTube Premium. The platform has recently intensified efforts against ad-blockers and is testing unskippable Pause ads to enhance the Premium subscription appeal.
While Picture-in-Picture (PiP) functionality works for Shorts, scrolling to another short and using Smart Downloads for saving Shorts remain unavailable in our tests.
What are your thoughts on these new YouTube features for Premium subscribers? Do they make a compelling case for subscribing to the paid service? Share your opinions in the comments below.
0 Comments