YouTube is now testing an AI instrumentals generator as well as a feature that matches Shorts clips to music. Photo Credit: Kelly Sikkema
YouTube is officially testing AI-generated instrumentals as well as a Shorts soundtrack-matching feature.
Creator Insider, billed as “an informal YouTube channel” operated by the platform’s “Creator technical team,” revealed those new offerings in a brief video.
On the instrumentals side, the “gradually” expanding AI-music support appears straightforward enough. As laid out by program manager Lauren Fendel, certain channels can now use text prompts to generate fully cleared works.
“These are free for you to use, so you don’t need to worry about copyright claims,” Fendel elaborated of the outputs.
Despite the off-platform availability of Google’s MusicFX, the instrumentals generator processes these prompts (and provides downloadable audio) via a “Music Assistant” tab on YouTube Studio itself, the video shows.
Shifting, then, to release details, the AI instrumentals are currently live for some channels that have access to YouTube Studio’s years-old Creator Music catalog. And the latter, which offers upfront and revenue-sharing licenses for protected works, is still exclusive to Partner Program-enrolled YouTubers in the States.
(A few creators are taking to Reddit to inquire about Creator Music’s international-release timetable. But the appropriate support page only notes that “[e]xpansion to YPP creators outside of the U.S. is pending.”)
As for Shorts soundtrack matching, the capability, as its name suggests, aims “to help creators reduce editing complexity when trying to sync their clips to the beat,” per the video.
“When you select multiple photos and video clips from your phone’s gallery,” said the over 14-year Google/YouTube vet Fendel, “you’ll now have the option to automatically create a short video synced to music. Just choose the media, pick a song, and it will arrange your clips to match the beat.”
Regarding availability, the soundtrack-matcher’s current reach and future rollout plans don’t appear to be set in stone. “This will be available to a small number of creators during the experiment phase, but we’ll keep you posted if we expand it,” the YouTube employee relayed.
In the bigger picture, music-feature tests aren’t new for Shorts, which in November 2023 debuted Dream Track. At the time, the “suite of experimental tools” emphasized a selection of AI-powered soundalike vocals, including from T-Pain and Sia.
Since then, Dream Track has apparently pivoted into instrumental soundtracks, an October 2024 video indicates. Unlike the more robust music-generation option described above, the mobile-geared Dream Track looks to function in the Shorts app’s camera as opposed to YouTube proper.
