YouTube is testing a custom feed that lets you finally fix your messy home page

For years, YouTube has felt like a benevolent dictator telling you what you should be watching. Now, things might be changing as YouTube is poking at one of the most sensitive parts of its platform: the home feed.​

YouTube has run a few experiments in the past meant to customize your feed based on your viewing habits, but this time around, instead of throwing another round of algorithm tweaks at users, it is testing something much bolder — an AI chatbot that lets you directly tell YouTube what you want more (or less) of in your recommendations.​

If the experiment is live for you, you should now see a new “Your Custom Feed” chip next to “Home” on your YouTube home page, as per a support page. It sounds similar to the AI-powered algorithm that X introduced in September, which uses the company’s Grok AI to show users more of what they like.

The big twist in YouTube’s approach is that it uses an AI chatbot to help you customize your video recommendations by just entering a prompt. After telling YouTube’s AI what to tune, the app then updates your recommendation feed instantly without forcing you to dig through algorithm explanations.

It’s a rare moment where YouTube is admitting that its algorithm doesn’t always know what you want. Your feed can get messy fast: click one video out of curiosity, and suddenly your home tab thinks you’ve pivoted your entire personality to toddler toy unboxings. The new experiment is designed to address that issue.

The latest experiment aligns with YouTube’s broader push to give users more control, like the switches that hide certain types of recommendations. If the experiment expands, YouTube might finally deliver a home feed that feels like something you built, instead of something the algorithm guessed you wanted at 2 AM.