YouTube will let you write your own algorithm. Sort of
YouTube will let you describe the feed you want and have Google's Gemini AI build it. It's a welcome bit of control, a quiet admission about algorithms, and US-only for now.
YouTube is going to let you tell its algorithm what you want. At its Made On YouTube event this week, the company announced Custom Feeds: you type a description of the videos you're after, and Google's Gemini AI builds a feed to match. You can make several, and they sit as tabs at the top of your home page.
It's a useful idea, and one YouTube users have wanted for years. It also says a lot about how little control most of us have had until now.
How Custom Feeds work
Instead of training the algorithm by watching things and hoping it takes the hint, you write a prompt. YouTube's own examples include "a feed dedicated to video podcasts for a 30-minute commute" and "relaxing commentary videos to unwind with". You can be specific about mood and topics, and about what to leave out. Each feed keeps refreshing with new videos, and your normal home feed stays as it is.
YouTube's Emily Moxley pointed to the scale of the problem it's trying to solve: "There's over 20 billion videos in the YouTube corpus." Finding the right ones by accident isn't easy.
The catch for us: it's launching for US users first, rolling out this autumn across web, mobile and TV. YouTube hasn't said when it's coming to the UK.
YouTube isn't the first to do this. Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, X and Spotify have all added ways to shape feeds with AI or custom settings. But YouTube is by far the biggest video platform to try it.
The algorithm that overreacts
Anyone who uses YouTube knows the problem. As Android Authority put it, watch one random woodworking video and "suddenly the algorithm can decide you've found your new life's calling". Custom Feeds let you keep your interests in separate boxes, so a one-off video doesn't take over your recommendations for a month.
Here's the more interesting bit. For years, platforms have told us their algorithms know what we want better than we do. Custom Feeds quietly admits that isn't always true. Sometimes people know exactly what they want, and the most useful thing an AI can do is listen.
But notice who's still in charge. You describe what you want, and Gemini decides what fits. It's more control than before, not complete control. And every prompt you write tells YouTube a lot about you.
Why it matters in the UK
YouTube is about more than entertainment here. Ofcom's latest news report, published this month, found that a third (33%) of UK adults used YouTube for news, and one in five (21%) had used an AI app or service for news in the previous month. Ofcom's Ian Macrae put it simply: "many people don't go direct to the news, the news is coming to them through different online intermediaries, increasingly AI-enabled."
That makes feeds a public interest question, not just a product feature. A prompt like "only show me videos that agree with me" is easy to write. And under the Online Safety Act, platforms already have to stop harmful content reaching children through their recommendation feeds. When Custom Feeds arrive in the UK, it'll be worth watching how YouTube handles prompts from teenage accounts, and whether Ofcom takes an interest.
To be fair to YouTube
This is a real improvement. Letting people say what they want, rather than guessing from what they clicked at 1am, is a better way to run a recommendation system. It doesn't replace the main feed, and it's entirely optional.
Mind the hype. And mind what you type into that prompt box.
Sources: TechCrunch, Android Authority, Broadband TV News.