YouTube Premium brings PiP support, Jump Ahead, etc. to Shorts

 Additionally, the platform is also expanding the availability of Jump Ahead.

For those who don't know, the Smart Downloads feature automatically downloads and adds recommended videos to your library for offline viewing. Picture-in-picture, on the other hand, is an existing feature for long-form videos, and it shrinks the current video into a small floating window.

Jump Ahead can be used to jump to the best parts of the video. It has been tested for several months and has finally hit the market. Jump Ahead leverages audience data and Google Machine Learning to identify important sections. This feature will also be said to be exclusive to YouTube Premium.

Google is also adding new experimental features to YouTube that can summarize comments and AI chatbots where users can ask questions about videos. So far, these two features are rolling out to Premium users in the US and will be available in other countries soon.

YouTube has also launched a controversial new user interface. The main changes are the location of the comments section next to the title and description, which now appears on the left instead of below the video.

With these new features, YouTube wants to attract more users to subscribe to Premium. Recently, the platform limited ad blockers and started testing unskippable ads in hopes of making YouTube Premium more appealing.

The author tested PiP in Shorts and it worked, but couldn't figure out how to switch to another short, which might be helpful. It is also currently not possible to use Smart Downloads to save short videos.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 29 June 2024