YouTube Will Soon Make You Your Own Feed When You Ask for It
YouTube will let people in the US make their own video feeds just by typing what they want to watch, on phones, computers, and TVs.
The choice will live on the homepage. You pick "Your custom feed" at the top of the Home tab and type a short request that describes the feed you want, according to YouTube support documentation. YouTube then builds a separate feed you can open from a tab. People in the US can try it soon on all three screens, Engadget reported on Sept. 23.
The idea has grown. You can now make more than one personal feed, not just one filtered view, SocialMediaToday reported in August. You can change the request at any time in the box at the top of the feed to make a new one, 9to5Google reported in May. It is a bit like telling a librarian what you like, and getting a shelf made just for you.
Comments get GIFs and synthetic voice
YouTube will soon let viewers reply under a video with a GIF, chosen from a library you can search. GIF comments will come to the phone app around the world sometime this fall.
TVs will work differently. The TV app now lets viewers leave voice comments using a tool that turns typed words into speech, on TVs that support it. Typing with a remote is slow. Speaking from the couch is much easier, and you do not need your phone.
The wider question here is safety. Words, GIFs, and computer-made voices can each be misused in different ways. A searchable library means YouTube picks the GIFs and can set limits, instead of letting anyone upload anything, which keeps problems smaller.
Assistants, shows and live translation
YouTube is adding shopping help to Ask YouTube. When you ask for product reviews, you will get suggested videos plus a simple table that compares products side by side.
Ask Music on YouTube Music will let listeners learn about a singer or band and change what plays next, in the same chat.
YouTube is also adding Podcast Lineup, which uses AI to make a short weekly preview of podcasts you might like. It is a taster, not a full written copy or a full playlist.
Creators can now group Shorts into shows, with their own pictures on the cover and episodes that play in order. It brings the TV episode idea to short vertical video.
YouTube will start testing live auto-dubbing in early 2027, first in English and Spanish. Dubbing live is harder than dubbing a finished video, because the translation has to keep up with no delay. Starting with two common languages makes the first test simpler.
Separately, YouTube extended its exclusive Coachella streaming rights through 2030.
The broader context here comes from older viewing habits. The main Home feed tries to keep everyone watching. Personal feeds give you more control, which is good when you want to learn something or follow a hobby, but harder for YouTube to measure. There is no longer one list to fix.
In my view, the point to watch is control against variety. I raised two children through home computers into phones and streaming, and the pattern held. The more they could shape their own feeds, the faster they found what they wanted and the less else they ran into. These new tools are truly helpful. They also mean viewers need to look for variety on purpose.
Looking at what this means for builders, the hard work now is basic. The request box, the GIF library, speech on many TVs, and fast live translation all have to work for millions of people. If they do, what this enables is simple. Viewers find what they want more easily, creators get new ways to share series and live shows, and chat helpers do more of the searching.
