It all began back in March, when Google started testing the ‘Jump Ahead’ button in the YouTube app for Android.
Initially available to a small number of people, tapping on this button will show an overlay stating, "Jumping over commonly skipped section," with a YouTube Premium badge. This allows users to quickly "jump" to "where most viewers typically skip ahead to."
This time, the company said that it's rolling out the Jump Ahead feature more widely, by making it available to Premium subscribers.
Initially, only users in the U.S. can access this feature, on mobile, and as an experimental feature.
And at least at this time, Google also said that the feature is only available for only videos that are in the English language, and "not available on every video."
With Jump Ahead, gone are the days of repeatedly tapping the screen to skip ahead in 10-second increments.
When the feature is turned on, double-tapping the screen will allow users to skip ahead in a video, to where most viewers typically skip ahead to.
The pill-shaped Jump ahead button appears briefly in the bottom-right corner of the screen and disappears if not used immediately.
According to Google, Jump Ahead “combines watch data and AI to help identify the next best point a viewer typically skips ahead to.”
For more years, YouTube has that useful visual indicators for the most viewed portion of a video above the playback progress bar on mobile and desktop.
The graph includes a direct indicator as to what portion is the 'Most viewed.'
And here, the Most viewed peak includes a star icon so that users can quickly ascertain just where other viewers are heading to first.
Google is building Jump Ahead using this data, and using machine-learning technology to analyze the watching data and automatically identify the next best point of interest in a video.
Because the feature is launched to Premium users as an experimental feature, Premium users should be able to find it under Settings > Try experimental new features in the YouTube mobile app.
In addition to the Jump ahead feature, YouTube Premium users can access an AI-generated 'Ask' questions feature.
The feature is an experimental conversational AI tool that allows users to engage with the videos they are watching by asking questions in real-time.
Users must also enable it for their account first, before using the Ask button under eligible videos.
This will allow them to either type in questions or choose from suggested prompts such as summaries or content recommendations.
The AI then processes the video content and the query, offering relevant answers while the video continues playing.
For educational videos, the tool can even provide quizzes and interactive responses to aid learning.
To get started, according to Google in a dedicated support page, users just need to tap on 'Ask', and then select one of the suggested prompts, or type their own question.
Initially, this feature is available on the Android app for YouTube Premium subscribers who are at least 18 years old and live in the U.S..