It looks like YouTube is finally adding an AI feature to its TV app that lets you jump to the most interesting parts of a video. Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman reports that the Jump Ahead feature, which was previously exclusive to YouTube’s web and mobile platforms, arrived on his Nvidia Shield TV yesterday for YouTube Premium subscribers.
Jump Ahead gives users an easy way to automatically skip to the best parts of a video using artificial intelligence that analyzes the most popular segments that viewers usually skip. YouTube began testing the feature last year and subsequently rolled it out to premium subscribers on the website and mobile devices, but those who prefer to watch on the big screen, which is now the primary source of viewing in the United States, have been left out until now.
Premium subscribers can activate the Jump Ahead feature by double-clicking the fast forward button on the video player, which takes viewers to the next point in the video that most users are watching. According to YouTube’s support page, the feature works differently on TVs: users must press the right arrow on the remote control to see the next most watched chapter, as indicated by a dot on the progress bar. Pressing the right arrow again will cause users to skip to that point in the video, rather than jumping ten seconds ahead as usual. Rahman says that when he used this feature, a message appeared saying “Jumping through a section that is normally skipped.”
While YouTube’s support page confirms that Jump Ahead is now “available in the living room,” the scope and pace of the feature’s rollout is unclear. The feature is not yet widely available on TVs, and YouTube has not announced its launch. A Reddit user reported that the feature appeared on his Samsung TV, and Android Police also spotted it on a Google TV streamer. We have reached out to Google for clarification on the rollout of this feature.
