How do I generate video ideas with Quick Ideas?

Quick Ideas researches your channel and your competitors, then gives you a ranked batch of up to 12 video concepts. Each idea comes with a Viral Score, an estimated view count, a competition rating and a full content structure you can turn straight into a script.

Open it from the sidebar under Content Creation > Quick Ideas. You may see it called "Viral Ideas" in older material and in the PDF export; it is the same tool.

Generate ideas

1. Click New Ideas.
2. Check the Channel field. It is pre-filled with your connected channel, but you can enter any public YouTube channel link or search by name.
3. Choose a Fine-tune mode (see below).
4. Optionally open More options and add instructions, for example "focus on beginner-friendly topics".
5. Press Generate Ideas.

A run takes about 5 to 10 minutes. You can leave the page: when you come back, it picks the run up again. Only one Quick Ideas run can be in progress at a time on your account.

Choose a mode

• Auto (default): TubeAI finds relevant channels in your niche and looks for content gaps.
• Content Bucket: uses the videos in one of your Content Buckets from Dashboard > My Videos, up to the top 1,000 videos by views.
• Channel Folder: uses the channels in one of your saved channel folders, up to the first 1,000 channels.
• Video Folder: uses the videos in one of your saved video folders, up to the first 25 videos.

Bucket and folder modes need a connected YouTube channel. The two folder modes are available on plans that include them; see the Billing page.

You can also start a bucket run from Dashboard > My Videos: every bucket has a Generate Ideas button that opens Quick Ideas with that bucket already selected.

How much research goes into a run

Every run studies your channel's recent and most popular uploads and your competitors' latest videos. On higher plans, Auto mode also adds competitor comments, live web and news research, and a scan of recent posts on X and Reddit. The folder modes are faster because they skip web and social research. How deep each run goes depends on your plan.

Quick Ideas also avoids repeating ideas from your last three runs for the same channel.

Reading your results

Ideas are numbered in ranked order. Six show at first; click Show More Ideas to see the rest. Each card shows:

• Viral Score: 80 to 100 is extremely high, 60 to 79 strong, 40 to 59 moderate, below 40 limited.
• Est. Views: a projection based on your channel's performance, topic popularity and competition. Real results depend on execution and timing.
• Competition: Low, Med or High, meaning how crowded the topic already is among competitors.

Click View Details to see the full structure: the concept, a hook, each part with key points and tips, a conclusion and an outro. The number of ideas and the scores can vary from run to run; TubeAI aims for 12 strong ideas but returns fewer when quality is lacking.

Turn an idea into a script

Click Create Script on any idea to open the Script Writer with that idea already filled in. You can also copy an idea as plain text with the copy icon, or export the whole batch as a PDF with Export.

Find past ideas

Click Your Ideas to open your history. Search by channel or by the instructions you used, then click a batch to reload it. Your latest batch loads automatically when you open the page. Reloading, searching and exporting are free.

What it costs

Each run costs 50 credits in every mode, whether you start it from the page or from Hugo. If a run fails, the 50 credits are refunded automatically. Nothing is charged if a run is refused before it starts, for example because of an invalid channel link or an empty folder.

When a run finishes, a message appears on the Quick Ideas page if it is open. There is no email notification. If you closed the page, your new batch is waiting in Your Ideas.

Prefer to work in chat?

You can also ask Hugo Strategist for video ideas. It fills in the setup for you, charges the same 50 credits when you press Generate, and posts a message in the chat when the batch is ready. Hugo can't pick a content bucket for you: switch the Mode option on the card to Bucket and choose it yourself. See Should I use Hugo Strategist or the tool pages?