YouTube’s homepage has a lot of power over what viewers ultimately watch, and the company’s new tool may help you improve its recommendations.
As spotted by Android Authority, some users are getting a new feature called “Your Custom Feed,” which allows you to enter an AI prompt to refine YouTube’s suggestions manually.
For example, you can tell it you like “watching video podcasts about history,” and in the future it will prioritize videos on that topic, even if you haven’t watched that many in the past.
YouTube has yet to fully explain the feature, but it appears prompts will be weighted against other elements of its own algorithm, such as what you regularly search for or what you’ve been watching recently. Letting you introduce your own tweaks allows you to quickly explore new topics and video styles.
YouTube refers to this as an “experiment,” which means most users aren’t able to access the feature. PCMag was unable to turn it on across multiple YouTube accounts. It’s unclear when this feature will begin to appear for all users.
If you are included in the test, you’ll find a new chip on the homepage at the top which reads Your Custom Feed. Press here and it’ll ask you to begin entering prompts into its AI tool.
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Despite its name, this feature is different to the brand’s Customize your feed option, which first launched in 2024. That’s a box within your homepage which gives you multiple recommendations that would typically appear in your feed. It asks you to “pick some videos to tell us what you like,” allowing you to upvote and downvote each option.
This new custom feed feature instead allows you to make a handbrake turn in what you watch, without losing YouTube’s own powerful recommendations. This may help introduce you to interesting new channels and voices.
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