Google is making some big changes to YouTube, and they’re rolling out now. The changes are coming not long after the company introduced new options to hide recommendations at the end of videos, and they’re likely to shake things up a bit. Chief among the new changes is a huge revamp of the video player, which, according to Google, should offer a “cleaner and more immersive video play” across all of the different platforms. The new design will include updated icons and control options, all while being less obscuring to the video that you’re actually watching.
Alongside the changes to the video player, Google is introducing improvements to the “Seek” feature, which you can use to skip through videos. Google claims it will now be “less intrusive” when used. Moving between tabs on mobile should also be more seamless, thanks to an updated design. The changes began rolling out to users on October 13, and Google says it will also introduce new video options such as custom like animations on certain video types and more.
Updated video player and new ways to save videos
But the video player isn’t the only thing seeing some big changes. Google is also introducing threaded comments to YouTube, which it says should make conversations easier to follow, as they’ll now provide a more structured system similar to what we’ve seen on other websites like X and Reddit. Video saving will also see some improvements — the revamped design should make the process much smoother and less time-consuming.
Exactly how long it will take for the features and changes to roll out to everyone is unclear, but it should hopefully introduce some nice additions to YouTube. This is also a nice surprise after some of Google’s latest stunts with YouTube, like its AI experiment to edit and smooth videos was criticized due a to lack of consent. On the other side of things, Google also recently introduced some new designs to YouTube Music, which make searching for music much easier.
