YouTube dips its toe into AI with auto-generated summaries

Everyone’s talking abouT AI, right?! And of course, we’re all intrigued about the impact it’s going to have on content marketing.

There are so many questions, the biggest of which is will it replace all the clever and creative SEO experts out there. While that still seems a long way off, the big players, and most specifically Google, are experimenting with possible applications for the technology. The latest is AI-generated summaries on its YouTube platform.

Before you immediately stop writing descriptions for your brand’s video content, let’s get one thing straight, this new feature is an added extra, not a replacement for the current succinct intros. But why is all of this so important?

We need metadata to be found

While an attention-grabbing video is a great piece of content to have to promote your brand, it’s not just the moving pictures that are doing all the work. To fully make the most of your multimedia assets they need to be properly optimised and that means metadata.

Think of the new AI-generated summary as a nice-to-have added extra, because you still need to craft a description that’s going to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Be sure to include one or two keywords, make it unique, but accurate, and the right length. This will make it discoverable and ensure it stands out from other content on YouTube or other platforms.

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Where will these AI-generated summaries appear?

One thing to remember is that these new summaries are a test and therefore won’t necessarily be rolled out everywhere or even in the long term. The ever-evolving world of the internet requires trial and error, so it makes sense to see how AI functions when creating such summaries to scale.

Introducing the video before a viewer has even clicked on the thumbnail, the AI-generated summaries will offer an extra level of information to help users decide if the content is right for them. That means viewers will no longer need to rely on the title and thumbnail alone.

So, skilled content creators are not becoming obsolete?

Whether AI will eventually replace skilled content creators is yet to be seen, but we’re confident that the creativity and imagination our team has honed over years of experience at Axonn is hard to replicate, let alone beat.

Having said that, we’re not afraid to embrace new technologies and have found ways in which AI can enhance our services. Using it to create briefs that are then written by skilled humans is an efficient way to ensure the best of both worlds for our clients.

Where else is Google experimenting with AI?

In the meantime, Google continues to explore the many ways in which AI can be put to use across its platforms. While Tensor SoC, Bard and Duet AI are stealing the headlines, the technology may change the way we use everything from Gmail to Google Ads going forward.