YouTube will soon let viewers generate custom feeds and reply with GIFs

YouTube used its annual Made by YouTube product event on Wednesday to present a batch of features aimed at viewers rather than creators, from AI-assembled custom feeds to GIF replies in comments.

Custom feeds built with a prompt

The headline viewer feature is custom feeds. A new tab reachable from the YouTube homepage will let people assemble their own collections of videos around a mood or an interest — one feed for workouts, another for long documentaries, a third for new creators in a particular niche. The feeds are put together with conversational AI prompts rather than lists of channels picked by hand. Users in the US will be able to try custom feeds soon on the web, on mobile and on TVs.

GIF comments, and dictation on TV

Comments come next: a searchable GIF library will let viewers post an image under a video instead of typing out a reply. YouTube says the feature will reach the mobile app globally sometime this fall. On the YouTube app for TVs, viewers can already post comments with their voice through a text-to-speech tool, as long as the television supports it.

Shorts that play in sequence

YouTube has also expanded its episodic shows feature to Shorts. Creators can now arrange episodes with custom thumbnails and sequential playback, so a story can be followed in order instead of hunted down clip by clip. Engadget notes the setup looks well suited to microdramas, where keeping up with a series episode by episode is the whole point.

Ask YouTube for shopping, Coachella through 2030

Ask YouTube is adding shopping capabilities: ask for reviews of a product and it returns video recommendations along with a comparison table, and it can answer questions about products that appear in a video without being mentioned — an item a creator is wearing, for instance. A conversation can now carry over from the search screen into the video player. YouTube also extended its exclusive Coachella streaming rights through 2030, and in early 2027 it will pilot live auto-dubbing, initially in English and Spanish, so viewers can hear a creator in their preferred language in real time. YouTube Music, meanwhile, gets an Ask Music tool for artist background and queue changes, plus a Podcast Lineup discovery feature, both for Music and Premium subscribers worldwide.