You know YouTube is finally rolling out generative AI to the platform for the first time in its weekly feature update, while it is also bringing new live-stream notifications within the Shorts feed.

First, YouTube is expanding its generative AI music project. It allows an AI remix option for some of its tracks through its "Dream Track" experiment.

If you are a creator in the experiment group, pick an eligible song, explain how you would like to re-style it, then generate a unique 30-second soundtrack to use in your Short. For example, when you want a different genre or mood in a song, you simply feed your vision into the 'Restyle a track' prompt and within no time, you get a customized soundtrack that re-imagines the music but retains the essence of the original song's vocal and lyrical rendition.

This is the latest in YouTube's efforts to collaborate with musicians and publishers to add more music options; therefore, only selected tracks are in this option. It may, however, open new doors for artists while continuing to give attribution back to the original. An endless number of remixes will definitely be listened to by more people, which can also make music an interesting and interactive choice in the app.

This experiment, on YouTube, is currently available to "a small group of creators," whilst Dream Track itself became available to all U.S. creators last month.

YouTube's also introducing a new feature that will enable creators of both Shorts and livestreams to include reminders for their upcoming streams within the Shorts feed.
I say "include" not "add" or "share" in this sense, because you don't get much in terms of post control here.

"To ensure this stream reminder option appears in your Shorts, just schedule a stream and Shorts viewers will find a reminder option within 24 hours of a stream starting. We hope this helps Shorts viewers join in on even more of your future live streams."

So if you have an upcoming live-stream, now your Shorts viewers will see that reminder option the day before the stream. It may be a pretty nice way to raise awareness of your broader presence on YouTube, and since Shorts are so popular, it may also help bring many more viewers to your broadcasts.

And YouTube has another update that says that all video uploads less than 3 minutes long will be converted into Shorts.
YouTube said last month that all videos 3 minutes in duration or shorter would become Shorts and eligible to appear in the Shorts feed. It has had to jump in now with a few clarifications about what, exactly, that does and does not mean in real life.
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Videos uploaded to YouTube between October 15 and 1-3 minutes in length are not going to be eligible for the Shorts feed or listed as Shorts.
3 minutes or less videos published after this date will be listed as Shorts, and eligible to be shown in the Shorts stream.
YouTube is now acting on this so that it is not a natural conversion for all creators so far, which is adding to the chaos. But basically, this is the current ruling YouTube is providing, and if you are not seeing this reflected on your channel content, it will be coming soon.

YouTube says it expects to have the full, platform-wide Shorts conversion process in place by early next month.

Interesting updates, always, not "game changers" in the classical sense but will be of relative value and importance for some creators.