YouTube experimenting with new home feed navigation, AI comment search and more

YouTube is A/B testing a new UI for the mobile app on both Android and iOS. The location of the Subscriptions tab has shifted to the top, thumbnails may be displayed in different sizes, and more.

The set of changes was officially posted on the YouTube test features and experiments page, and the company is experimenting with moving around some UI elements.

Most notably, the “Subscriptions” tab has been relocated from the bottom menu to the top bar. This leaves the bottom navigation with just four options (Home, Shorts, Plus, and You) and introduces a new swipeable interface. Users can now easily swipe left or right to switch between their Home and Subscriptions feeds. 

Screenshots of the UI changes were shared by @howfxr through a post on X. You can take a look at the images below.

The official post from YouTube also mentions that other feeds like Movies & TV may be shifted to the top as well, so you can access them with swipes. To get to the Explore menu, you can just pull the screen to refresh or scroll up.

It’s worth noting that these changes are only experiments. A small number of users on iOS and Android have started receiving them as part of a test, and they’ll only roll out globally if there’s sufficient positive feedback. For now, user reactions appear negative, since changes like these disrupt muscle memory. 

UI changes aside, YouTube is also experimenting with a new comment search tool. You can search by topic, find similar comments, or use suggested topics to filter out specific themes. However, this feature is also an experiment that hasn’t yet rolled out to everyone.

Additionally, YouTube is testing out variable thumbnail sizes on the web and also on iOS/Android. Another interesting experiment is AI in YouTube search, where you can ask very specific questions and even get video segments as the response.

It’s unclear when, or if, these features will roll out to the public. YouTube is known for running A/B tests for years before finalizing features. For instance, tests replacing the thumbs-up button with a heart have surfaced both recently and as far back as two years ago.

We’ll keep this post updated if more information comes up.

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