Companies continue finding ways to integrate AI into their products, and YouTube Music is the latest to receive the AI treatment. Thanks to YouTube Labs, users can try out new features before Google makes them more widely available to the general public, and the first is a new AI-powered music DJ/host.
It’s called “Beyond the Beat,” and it functions as a radio show featuring two AI hosts who converse with each other before and after songs. After every few songs, the hosts will provide insight into a track that just played or an upcoming song, offering backstories, trivia, history, and more. The offering is not too unlike Spotify’s AI DJ.
Here’s how you can test YouTube Music’s new AI hosts and provide feedback on the experience before it rolls out more widely.
How to sign up for YouTube Labs
Before you can try the new AI host, you need to be subscribed to YouTube Music or YouTube Premium. If you’re already subscribed, you can sign up by using the link: www.youtube.com/new, or by following the steps below on your smartphone:
1. Open the YouTube app and tap your profile icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap the settings icon in the top right corner.
3. Select “Try experimental new features.”
4. Scroll down and tap the Join now button under YouTube Labs.
How to use (and snooze) YouTube Music’s AI hosts
Once you’ve joined the experiment, you don’t have to do anything else to enable the AI music hosts. Navigate to YouTube Music to begin listening to a radio or auto-generated mix, and the hosts will chime in periodically between tracks.
You can also pause the hosts if you want to listen to music uninterrupted. You will notice a new button next to the like and dislike options. This button includes a sparkle icon and lets you snooze the AI hosts, providing two options:
- Snooze for 1 hour
- Snooze for a day
Note that you cannot turn off Beyond the Beat. You can only snooze the experience or leave the experiment by returning to the YouTube Labs page in the previous section.
Still a work in progress
As we know by now, AI isn’t perfect, and it’s bound to make an error every now and then. Google makes note of this in the snooze menu, stating that “AI commentary can make mistakes.”
Fortunately, Google encourages testers to provide feedback, which may help shape the future of the feature if/when it rolls out more widely. In order to do so, navigate back to the YouTube Labs page in the first section. Here, you’ll find a Feedback button, which will take you to a form you can fill out regarding your experience.
Note that not everyone can partake in the experiment. According to Google, a “limited number of US-based participants can test early prototypes and experiments and influence the future of YouTube.”
