YouTube plans to let viewers describe the videos they want to see and turn those descriptions into saved homepage feeds. Announced at Made on YouTube on September 23, Custom Feeds will create dedicated tabs for interests, moods, or routines and refresh them with new recommendations.
These are additional feeds, not a replacement for YouTube’s default Home feed. A viewer could open one tab for documentaries at night and another for discovering unfamiliar DIY creators, while keeping the general recommendation stream for other visits. YouTube says the feature is coming to U.S. users on web, mobile, and TVs, but has not given a firm general-availability date.
Viewers will have a way to express what they want in ordinary language. How much that expression changes the videos YouTube selects remains an open question.
A Prompt Becomes a Feed You Can Revisit
In YouTube’s Custom Feeds announcement, the company describes dedicated homepage tabs that viewers can create and save for different purposes. Its examples include “evening wind down with long documentaries” and “new DIY creators.” Viewers can keep multiple feeds without rewriting a request whenever they want to switch interests.
YouTube’s broader Made on YouTube overview says the saved feeds will update automatically with fresh recommendations. A custom feed works more like an ongoing recommendation request than a playlist assembled once by hand: you supply the theme, and YouTube continues choosing videos it thinks fit.
Search is useful when someone knows what they want to find. A saved feed is intended for returning to a type of viewing, such as podcasts suited to a commute, without running the same search each time. YouTube’s examples suggest prompts can combine preferences for subject, mood, format, and occasion. They do not establish that every detail, such as a requested running time, will be enforced precisely.
The existing Home feed remains available. TechCrunch reports that custom feeds will appear as separate tabs. Someone who never creates one should still have the familiar general-purpose homepage; someone who does can move between Home and more narrowly described feeds.
Viewers Describe the Goal, but YouTube Still Picks the Videos
“Build your own algorithm” captures the attraction of Custom Feeds, though it overstates the control on offer. A viewer can describe a desired feed. YouTube still decides which videos qualify, how to rank them, and when to introduce new recommendations.
TechCrunch reports that Google’s Gemini model helps turn prompts into feeds. YouTube’s own viewer announcement does not identify the model behind Custom Feeds or explain the ranking process. For now, Gemini’s role is a reported implementation detail, not a specification readers can independently assess from YouTube’s announcement.
TechCrunch also says viewers can describe content they want to prioritize or exclude. Neither the announcement nor the reporting establishes how consistently a feed will honor an exclusion, whether results will draw on a viewer’s broader watch history, or how much control someone will have to adjust a saved feed afterward. Requesting a preference does not necessarily make it a reliable filter.
A prompt for new creators, for example, is useful only if the resulting tab regularly surfaces creators the viewer has not already encountered. YouTube has not published tests showing how well Custom Feeds perform on that kind of request. Their usefulness as a recommendation control will depend on the results.
Custom Feeds are separate from the expanded Ask YouTube feature announced in the same viewer update. Ask YouTube is an interactive assistant for questions, including product-shopping questions while watching videos. A Custom Feed is meant to persist on the homepage and keep presenting recommendations over time.
The U.S. Rollout Has No Firm Launch Day
YouTube says Custom Feeds will be available to users in the United States on web, mobile, and TVs “soon.” That is the company’s stated scope, not confirmation that every eligible viewer can create a feed today. YouTube has not announced an exact launch day or plans for other countries in its viewer update.
TechCrunch provides a narrower timing detail, reporting that creation of multiple feeds will begin rolling out on web and mobile the month after the September 23 announcement. That points to an October 2026 start for those surfaces, though a rollout can take time to reach users. The report does not establish the same timetable for TVs.
There is no hands-on verdict to offer before people can use the feature at scale. We do not yet know whether the prompt interface will be equally capable on every screen, how prominently saved tabs will appear, or whether viewers will return to them after the novelty wears off.
YouTube Joins a Broader Move Toward Prompt-Driven Feeds
YouTube is not alone in giving people more ways to shape recommendations. TechCrunch points to Bluesky’s Attie, an AI-assisted feed-building tool, and notes other services experimenting with user-directed feeds. The shared idea is to let people describe what they want to see instead of relying entirely on a platform’s standard stream or a fixed set of topic buttons.
The products have different selection problems. A social feed draws from posts by accounts and communities; a YouTube tab draws on videos across a vast library. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says more than 20 million videos are uploaded to the platform each day. A well-understood prompt could help narrow that supply into something useful, while leaving YouTube to decide what counts as relevant.
Viewers can give the recommendation system a standing instruction in their own words. Whether that offers more dependable control than existing ways of finding videos will depend on the results.
Creator Discovery May Change, but Nobody Knows by How Much
For creators, Custom Feeds could open another route to being found. A viewer who asks for “new DIY creators” is expressing a different intent from someone browsing a general homepage. If YouTube responds by recommending relevant channels the viewer has not seen before, smaller or more specialized creators could benefit.
Frequently Asked Questions
5 questions
1What Are YouTube Custom Feeds?
YouTube Custom Feeds are saved homepage tabs built around descriptions a viewer provides in natural language. YouTube says viewers will be able to create multiple feeds for interests, moods, or routines, and each will refresh with new video recommendations. They are ongoing recommendation feeds, not playlists of videos a viewer selects individually.
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Sources
- YouTube will let you build your own algorithm with AI | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com
- YouTube’s Custom Feeds announcementblog.youtube
- Made on YouTube overviewblog.youtube
