YouTube is testing a new feature that allows Premium subscribers to skip boring parts of videos automatically. The AI-powered ‘Jump ahead’ button identifies sections that most viewers tend to skip and fast forwards through them with a single tap.
After double tapping the 10 second skip button, a new pill shaped button appears for a few seconds labelled “Jump ahead”. Tapping this uses YouTube’s algorithm and watch data from millions of users to determine the most engaging part of the video upcoming. It then fast forwards directly to that point so you don’t have to waste time skipping manually.
“Jump ahead leverages AI to get you to the good stuff” said a YouTube spokesperson. The machine learning models have been trained on watch history and feedback from a huge number of videos to understand where people generally lose interest. By skipping those commonly boring parts, it aims to enhance the viewing experience for Premium subscribers.
How Does it Work?
When you tap the “Jump ahead” button, an overlay appears notifying that it is “Jumping over commonly skipped section”. It then fast forwards at 4x speed by default until it reaches the predicted interesting part. You can still manually skip forward or back as needed. The feature is currently only available on Android in English videos but may expand to more languages and iOS over time.
YouTube sees this as another valuable perk for Premium users. As well as ad-free viewing and downloads for offline access, Jump ahead lets subscribers breeze through videos even faster. It could help keep people engaged longer by avoiding dull or repetitive parts automatically. The AI is constantly refining too so its predictions should become more accurate with more user data.