YouTube is experimenting with a new search feature on Android devices that will help users determine which song they’re humming. The company said that the ability to search song-by-song on the Android version of the app will recognize a song by humming, singing or recording it.
Users who already have access to the feature can use YouTube’s voice search by singing or recording a song of three seconds or longer. After identifying the song, the platform will direct the user to the relevant YouTube video containing the searched song, or its official music video or related shorts.
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The feature is only available to a small fraction of Android users, according to the company’s support page, but if it’s widely implemented, the feature could be a step ahead of Shazam.
Google introduced a similar feature on the Google Search Widget and Google Assistant in 2020, but this feature required users to hum for 10-15 seconds to identify the song. YouTube’s feature is built on a machine learning model that can match a person’s hum to the “fingerprint” or signature melody of a song.
