YouTube is testing AI-generated video chapters

YouTube‘s video chapters could soon get a time-saving AI upgrade. The streaming giant recently started testing using machine learning to automatically add chapters to videos.

The company announced the trial on the YouTube test features and experiments page of the Google Support website:

We want to make it easier for people to navigate videos with video chapters, so we are experimenting with automatically adding video chapters (so creators don’t have to manually add timestamps). We’ll use machine learning to recognize text in order to auto generate video chapters. We’re testing this out with a small group of videos. 

The system could be a welcome addition to video chapters, which YouTube rolled out to creators in May. 

The feature allows creators to break up videos into sections with their own individual previews. Viewers can then skip straight to the segment they want to watch.

YouTube says that when chapters are enabled, viewers watch more of the video and are more likely to come back to it. But creators currently have to manually add the timestamps to their video descriptions. Auto-generating the chapters would save them the trouble — as long as it organizes the content effectively.

If your videos are among those being tested, you can offer feedback on the process or opt-out of the experiment here.