Marvin is a Features Author for Android Police. His media career began as an editorial assistant at a now-defunct print publication. He has since transitioned to digital media as an editor, attended technology events in over 10 countries, and earned his master's degree in journalism.
He enjoys film photography, outdoor running, and alternative coffee brewing during his leisure time.
I like to speed up my YouTube videos during dragging parts. It could be a sponsored segment or a drawn-out chapter that I'm not interested in.
I usually tap and hold my smartphone screen to speed up the video to 2.0x. This lets me quickly skip over portions without opening the playback speed menu. Other times, I set my playback speed to a steady 1.5x, so I don't have to keep holding my thumb on the touchscreen.
While speedrunning a video about coffee gear, I noticed a new feature called Auto Speed under the playback speed settings. I decided to try it. What came after was a mix of good and bad, but mostly good.
Auto Speed does the thinking for me
AI tries to make my binge-watching easier
Auto Speed was previously a YouTube Labs experiment you had to opt into. I tried it when the feature arrived on my YouTube account, but wasn't impressed by the initial results.
Months have passed since then, and Auto Speed is now a staple feature on my YouTube app. It requires a Premium account, which means it doesn't work with browser hacks.
Google must have listened to feedback and made some fixes, because Auto Speed is much better now. It dynamically speeds up my videos based on the content. If there's dead air or a slow-talking presenter, Auto Speed zips through those parts.
It takes only a few steps to turn on:
- Open the YouTube app.
- Select any horizontal video.
- Enter the settings in the upper-right corner.
- Select Playback speed.
- Turn on Auto Speed.
As you'd expect, Auto Speed doesn't work on YouTube Shorts. They're simply too short. Auto Speed is limited to full-length landscape-oriented videos.
When it's turned on, you'll notice the playback speed change in increments every few seconds. The additional speed can be as low as 0.01x for videos that don't need much fast-forwarding.
How Auto Speed works
It's not just AI
Auto Speed primarily uses AI to identify parts of a video that linger too long or have no worthwhile content. If you scrub through a video, you'll sometimes notice a heatmap showing the most-replayed segments. Auto Speed uses this heatmap to adjust accordingly.
The feature works on top of the base speed I use. For example, when I pick 1.5x as my playback speed and turn Auto Speed on, the playback won't go below 1.5x. This can push speeds above 2.0x when over 0.5x stacks on top of 1.5x.
It can get chaotic if I forget to turn off Auto Speed or leave the base speed on 1.5x before switching to another video. There's no overlay indicating the playback speed as I watch; I have to check the playback speed menu each time.
Tapping and holding the touchscreen to speed up the video still works with Auto Speed on. For example, if my video is running at 1.52x, it would ramp up to 2.0x while I keep my finger on the display.
Auto Speed doesn't work in a few instances. The most glaring one is in non-English videos. Even though Google's AI has built-in translation, it can't decipher speech patterns and heatmaps outside English videos.
Auto Speed also disappears in certain content types. The feature doesn't apply to sports or music videos, but it's disappointing to see it missing from livestreams replays. Auto Speed would be perfect for hours-long livestreams after they're published.
When to use Auto Speed
And when you shouldn't
I found Auto Speed most useful for long-form podcasts, gadget reviews, and explainer videos. These categories benefit from automatic playback speed adjustments during slow talking points and transitions.
Auto Speed helps preserve vital content while glossing over rarely replayed moments, based on how others have watched that video. Before this feature, I constantly double-tapped to move five seconds forward or held down to maintain 2.0x playback speed.
The biggest downside to using Auto Speed is the uncanny valley effect. Although the automatic playback adjustment runs smoothly, seeing a presenter go from normal speed to even a slight 1.2x speed increase is unsettling. There's no warning when it's about to happen or an overlay indicating the current speed.
Auto Speed doesn't apply motion smoothing or movement compensation to the person talking. This results in unnatural movements at seemingly random moments. When speed increases or drops substantially, the video tends to stutter or desync from the audio or visuals.
From my experience, Auto Speed doesn't work at all for sports highlights and music videos, as it should. I'd add stand-up comedy acts and movie trailers to the feature's blacklist; they look absolutely silly with any playback-speed adjustment.
Auto Speed shouldn't be a default setting
As much as I enjoy using Auto Speed, I'd rather keep it off by default. I've been using the feature a lot for the past few weeks, but it's jarring when I forget to turn it off and start another video with it automatically turned on. You have to activate Auto Speed manually for each video.
Auto Speed works well when combined with YouTube's other AI features. The Jump Ahead button skips over entire portions with low heatmaps, and Gemini provides summaries for long-form videos within the YouTube interface. Put together, YouTube videos with dragging content become easier to watch. It just takes some getting used to.