YouTube Music is rolling out some fun new features, including the expansion of the “hum to search” tool that has been in beta for Android users since March. The company says this tool allows users to “search the YouTube Music catalog of over 100 million official songs” by using natural sound.
All you have to do is tap “search” and look for the waveform icon. Then it’s up to you. The tool lets people hum the song, sing the song or even play the song on another instrument. The feature is rolling out to YouTube music subscribers on both iOS and Android.
It’s also been working on something called AI-generated conversational radio. This isn’t a platform in which AI DJs take jobs away from Wolfman Jack or whatever. Rather, it’s a tool that lets people use natural conversation to describe the type of radio station they want to listen to. The algorithm will take in that information and create some tailor-made radio. This is sort of like Spotify’s AI DJ from a while back, but the conversational element should make the algorithm zero in on your exact tastes as described.
The bad news? It’s only available to select subscribers at this point, as it’s in a testing phase. If successful, it should roll out to more users in the coming months. After all, YouTube first announced the “hum to search” tool in March and its already becoming widely available.
