Summary
- YouTube Premium users can test a new feature that shows video suggestions in the queue view.
- Suggested videos don’t autoplay; users must manually add them to their playback queue.
- The experiment is live until April 7 and also includes testing for 4x playback speed.
Even though the company has been raising prices lately, there are still a lot of perks to subscribing to YouTube Premium beyond just ad-free content and offline downloads. One key benefit is early access to new features through the Experimental Features section.
YouTube uses this space to test upcoming features with paid subscribers for a limited time, letting them try things out and give feedback before a wider rollout. The latest experiment adds video recommendations directly to the playback queue for Premium users.
Related
YouTube has introduced a new experimental feature that adds recommended videos to the “Now Playing” queue. YouTube already recommends videos through the Home tab, under currently playing videos, and via search suggestions, but this new test places suggested videos into your queue if you’ve created one.
Currently, YouTube queues are created manually by users to play videos in a chosen order. Only videos added to the queue are played — without auto-playing recommended content in between. While that’s not changing, this new experiment adds a section of suggested videos within the user-created queue.
The user still has to manually add them if they want to watch them. Moreover, the videos aren’t necessarily related to what you’re currently watching — it seems they’re pulled from your general recommendations — but they could save you a trip back to the homepage to find something new.
YouTube is also testing a new feature that supports video playback at 4x speed
According to YouTube’s webpage for experimental features, this test is currently only available on Android and runs through April 7, 2025. However, I was able to access it on the YouTube app for iPhone as well. To try it, open the You tab in the YouTube app, tap the gear icon, go to Try experimental new features, and select Try it out under “Recommended videos in Premium Queue.”
In addition to the recommended videos queue, YouTube is also testing a new experiment that lets users stream videos at 4x speed, doubling the current 2x playback limit. The platform was also testing higher-quality music playback for Premium users last month, and it looks like that could be rolling out very soon too.
