The new YouTube Recap aggregates a user’s watched videos for the year and presents viewing volumes and topic breakdowns.

How Recap presents viewing data

At the start of the recap, YouTube notes that its AI may produce errors, and then shows categorized viewing statistics and overall analytics.

The feature highlights watched channels and gives per-topic summaries, allowing users to review which creators and genres received most attention during the year.

Questions about topic labels and achievements

Some users reported that the tool emphasized unfamiliar channels inside the AI section and flagged unexpected musical channels on the main platform.

By contrast, the service correctly attributed listening on YouTube Music for users who run that client separately on desktop systems.

Assigning thematic badges appears to rely on video descriptions or automated content analysis, which can misrepresent viewers’ intentions or the context of consumption.

To obtain more accurate badges, the system would need additional signals about why and how users engage with specific content, or permit manual adjustments.

Regional rollout and access

Access to the recap currently requires an US IP; YouTube said the feature will become available in other regions next week.

Potential product uses

The recap could serve internal purposes such as refining recommendation models or collecting training data, including for reinforcement learning from human feedback workflows.