YouTube Tests Products in this Video Experiment

YouTube has just announced a new feature it’s testing with some users. A “small experiment” will show shopping links to products mentioned in a YouTube video. Starting this week for a limited number of users, the “Products in this Video” feature will analyze the video for mentions of specific products. When it detects those products, new visual elements will be overlayed on the video or shown underneath the video to offer viewers easy shopping links to those products.

YouTube’s example looks at a video titled “Top 10 smartphones in 2020.” In that case, this new feature would see YouTube list out the different phone models included in the video.

It’s not known if creators will have any control over the feature. For many creators, affiliate links for products in the video are a huge source of income, so YouTube powering its own “Products in this Video” feature would obviously be a huge hit to that revenue stream.