Oct 30, 2019

YouTube test features and experiments

What are YouTube experiments? 
 YouTube product teams are constantly testing out new tools and features to help you find, watch, share and create content more easily. These test features (sometimes also called “betas” or “experiments”) are usually available for a short period of time and only for a small group of people. 
 
If you ever notice that YouTube looks a bit different for you than it does for your friend or family member, you’re likely seeing one of these experiments. Be sure to give YouTube feedback and report any potential technical issues – our teams use this information and experiment results to help us decide if, when, and how to release these features more broadly. 
 
Learn more about some existing feature experiments
To help you keep up with these test features, our TeamYouTube Community Managers will pilot keeping this forum thread updated with cool and interesting ones that we think you’ll want to know about! While this post won’t include every experiment, it’s a good place to start if you’re curious about what we’re testing out, or whether or not you’re currently seeing an experiment. To learn about previous experiments, check out this post.
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Last edited by Meaghan - TeamYouTube Jul 24, 2024
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Jan 7, 2025
[January 7, 2025] Testing a new video highlights tool in Studio: We’re experimenting with a feature that lets creators easily cut out engaging segments from long-form videos on YouTube and instantly publish them as separate 16:9 videos 🎬 If you’re a creator in the experiment, you will see the option to ‘Create a video highlight’ in the video editor tool in YouTube Studio Desktop. This test is rolling out to a small number of creators with English videos only, so if you find yourself in the experiment, send us your feedback!
Last edited Jan 7, 2025
Feb 19, 2025
[February 18, 2025] EXPANSION: Testing voice replies to comments: We’re expanding access to our voice replies experiment. Now, more creators on iOS will be able to try out our experimental feature that enables creators to reply to comments with their voice. If you’re a creator in the test group and want to try it out: Navigate to one of your videos via the YouTube app > Find a comment you want to respond to > Tap 'Reply' > Tap the sound wave icon > Record a voice reply > Post it as a comment. While we gather feedback in the experiment phase, voice replies can only be left by creators in the test group on your own channels, but all viewers and creators can engage with these comments. We'll let you know when we have more updates on this experiment 🔊!
6 days ago
[March 10, 2025] Testing improvements to ad suitability reviews: To improve the accuracy of our yellow icon decisions and get your videos monetizing faster, we are experimenting with automatically sending videos that receive a “Limited or no ads” rating for an additional review. This means that in some cases, we may review a newly uploaded video, even if visibility is set to private, and some monetization decisions may take up to 24 hours. We’re rolling this out to a small percentage of creators at first, but we’ll keep you posted on our plans to expand it to all creators that monetize with ads.
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