You Can Now Tell YouTube What You Want to Watch
YouTube announced custom feeds on September 23, 2026, a way to tell YouTube in your own words what videos you want to see, at its Made on YouTube event. TechCrunch
You type what you want into a box. Google's Gemini AI then builds a feed from your request. Each feed gets its own tab at the top of your home page.
These feeds do not replace the main YouTube feed. That main feed stays. You will be able to make more than one custom feed, on web and phones, starting next month.
As examples, YouTube pointed to video podcasts for a 30-minute train commute or relaxing commentary videos to unwind with. Emily Moxley, YouTube VP of Product Management for Viewer AI, said the company has over 20 billion videos.
The news came at YouTube's yearly Made on YouTube event in New York City on September 23, 2026. The Alphabet-owned company also showed AI creator tools and shopping updates at the event. Reuters
The broader context here is simple. Today YouTube mostly guesses what you want from what you watched before. A custom feed flips that. You state the need, like telling a librarian what you need instead of letting them guess from past loans, and the system must find matching videos, order them and keep them fresh.
In my view, the useful change is that the feed is easier to understand and fix. A sentence you wrote is clearer than months of clicks. Plain words can still be brittle. A very narrow request can leave too few videos, while a very broad one falls back to the normal mix. Keeping several focused tabs looks like the practical fix.
Looking at what this means for people who make videos, clear titles, descriptions and formats matter more, because the system must match your words to their videos. Clicks and total watch time also matter less for a stated task like filling a commute. Finishing the task, returning to the tab, and editing the request matter more. That would give viewers a steering wheel they have not had before, without removing the main feed.
