YouTube is testing a comment thread summary feature for short videos on mobile devices

YouTube is testing its artificial intelligence-based summary topic comment feature for Shorts. The experimental feature will only appear on the video streaming giant’s iOS and Android apps for now, and will be available on a limited number of Shorts with large commentary sections from select creators. This feature sorts the comments section into popular topics based on user-generated comments. AI themes were first announced last year and later rolled out globally for long-form videos. Notably, YouTube is also testing a custom AI-powered green screen image generator called Dream Screen for Shorts.

YouTube is testing AI themes for Shorts

On its dedicated support page for test features and experiments, YouTube has shared details of the feature. The platform said it is testing a comment thread summary feature for Shorts. Minute-long vertical videos with infinite scrolling have become a popular addition to streaming platforms.

YouTube is now adding a comment threads feature to encourage user participation in conversations. The AI ​​powered topic summary feature works in a simple way. Pulls all posted comments to find similar keywords. It then categorizes the most talked about keywords into different sections and generates a headline for each topic.

In long-form videos, these topics can be seen in the mobile app after the user enters the comments section. A new ‘Topics’ tab appears at the top of the section, displaying the various highlighted topics when clicked. Each thread displays all relevant comments to make it easier for users to find and contribute to interesting conversations.

YouTube stated that during the test AI themes will be visible on Shorts to selected creators who are part of the experimental groups. The company will select Shorts with large commentary sections and show themes. Front visibility will also be aimed at the small number of users who watch videos on the mobile app.

In case the creators want to remove any topic, they will have to delete the individual comments that appear under the particular topic. Furthermore, YouTube explained that AI only uses posted comments to thematically match them, and comments that are held for review, those that contain blocked words, or comments from blocked users will not be considered.