For years, the YouTube algorithm has been a black box — a mysterious force deciding what lands on your homepage and what you watch next. This week, YouTube started handing you the keys.
At its annual Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, the company announced Custom Feeds, a feature that lets you describe, in your own words, the videos you want to see. Type a prompt, and Gemini AI builds a personalized feed around it, pinned to the top of your homepage in its own tab.
Type a Prompt, Get Your Own Feed
The idea is simple: instead of one algorithmic homepage trying to serve every version of you at once, you get separate feeds for separate moods and routines. YouTube suggests you could build a feed of video podcasts for your 30-minute train commute, or ask for “relaxing commentary videos to unwind with.” According to TechCrunch, the prompts can be long and detailed — you can spell out what to include, what to exclude, and what to prioritize.
You can create multiple Custom Feeds that live side by side, each one refreshing automatically with new recommendations, and you can edit any feed’s prompt at any time. As 9to5Google reports, the feature is coming “soon” to US users across the web, mobile apps, and TVs. YouTube hasn’t given an exact launch date yet, so consider this announced — not live.
Everyone Is Racing to Let You Build Your Own Algorithm
YouTube isn’t first to this idea — it’s just the biggest platform to try it. Bluesky popularized user-built feeds years ago as a way to stand out from X, and rolled out an AI tool called Attie this year to make feed-building even easier. Threads, Instagram, and X have all shipped their own versions, many of them AI-powered too.
That’s what makes YouTube’s move notable. Its recommendation engine has historically been the least transparent — and most complained-about — part of the experience. Bringing prompt-built feeds to the world’s largest video platform is a bet that viewers want a say in what the algorithm serves them.
GIF Comments, Voice Replies, and AI Shopping Land Too
Custom Feeds headlined a packed slate of announcements. YouTube comments are getting GIF support this fall — a searchable GIF library inside the mobile comment box, available on both videos and Shorts. On smart TVs, you’ll be able to post voice comments through a text-to-speech tool, which means no more hunting and pecking with a remote.
Shopping is getting smarter as well. Ask YouTube will now surface organized video recommendations, including comparison tables with product attributes and categories, and you can keep asking questions about products directly on a video’s watch page. In-app direct messaging is also adding group chats this fall in the US, UK, Singapore, Brazil, and parts of Europe.
YouTube Music isn’t sitting out either. Premium subscribers worldwide are getting “Your podcast lineup,” a personalized AI-audio guide that delivers a weekly spoken preview of recommended shows and explains why you’ll like them — a fully hands-free experience. Ask Music is also picking up new tricks, like customizing your queue or digging into artist lore.
Why This Matters
Anyone who has watched one random video and had their entire homepage hijacked for a week understands the problem Custom Feeds solves. Keeping your interests in separate lanes means one late-night rabbit hole can’t poison your recommendations everywhere else.
The bigger story is the shift in power. For a decade, platforms treated the algorithm as a trade secret that users had no business touching. Now the race is to hand users the steering wheel, with AI as the interface. YouTube betting that viewers want control — not just content — is the clearest sign yet of where every feed-based app is headed next.
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