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More AI may be coming to YouTube in a big way

a content creator recording a thing in the kitchen with a bowl of food
Anna Shvets / Pexels

YouTube content creators could soon be able to brainstorm video topic, title, and thumbnail ideas with Gemini AI as part of the “brainstorm with Gemini” experiment Google is currently testing, the company announced via its Creator Insider channel.

The feature is first being released to a small number of selected content creators for critique, as a spokesperson from the company told TechCrunch, before the company decides whether to roll it out to all users. “We’re collecting feedback at this stage to make sure we’re developing these features thoughtfully and will improve the feature based on feedback,” the video’s host said.

the brainstorm with gemini screen
YouTube

The feature will be accessible through the platform’s analytics menu, under the research tab, and will generate idea prompts for the topic of the video, specific talking points, and progression — even thumbnail suggestions using Google’s large language model’s image generation capabilities.

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This marks Google’s second foray into including AI assistance in YouTube users’ creative processes. In May, the company launched a content inspiration tool on YouTube Studio that provides tips and suggestions for future clip topics based on viewer trends. For most any given topic, the AI will highlight related videos you’ve already published, provide tips on themes to use, and generate a script outline for you to follow.

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Creators who are participating in the experiment will have access to both the inspiration tool and brainstorm with Gemini, after inputting their video idea in the Studio search bar. Per TechCrunch, the company is using this as an A/B testing method to see whether creators prefer one over the other, or end up using both.

It is unlikely that these two features will fall under the AI transparency guidelines YouTube set out in March, which focuses primarily on labeling AI-generated images and videos.

“Generative AI is transforming the ways creators express themselves — from storyboarding ideas to experimenting with tools that enhance the creative process,” YouTube said in a message at the time. “But viewers increasingly want more transparency about whether the content they’re seeing is altered or synthetic.”

Andrew Tarantola
Andrew Tarantola is a journalist with more than a decade reporting on emerging technologies ranging from robotics and machine…
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