Trending Videos

Three tools for discovering what YouTube is recommending and what's going viral right now — search YouTube's auto-updated suggested video catalog with advanced filters, browse curated breakout hits from small channels that are punching well above their weight, or find faceless and AI-generated outlier videos.

Prerequisites

Connected AI assistant — Claude, ChatGPT, or any other supported platform
Active NexLev account — Connect to your AI assistant to get started. Upgrade to Pro for higher quota limits.

Your AI assistant calls these tools automatically. Just describe what you want in plain language and NexLev handles the rest.

Tools

`search_youtube_suggested_videos`

Search the auto-updated catalog of videos YouTube actively suggests to users — the home feed and "Up Next" recommendations. Each result carries a precomputed outlier score so your AI can instantly surface breakout videos without any extra analysis step.

Best for:

"What is YouTube recommending right now?"
"Find trending video ideas in the [niche] space"
"Show me breakout videos with a high outlier score from small channels"
"What are the newest suggested videos published this week?"
"Find Shorts YouTube is pushing in the finance category"

What it returns:

Video title, thumbnail, view count, like count, comment count
Publish date, duration, engagement rate
Channel subscriber count (channelSubCount) — pre-joined, no extra lookup needed
Outlier score — how much the video over-performs vs the channel average

Outlier score guide:

Score	Signal
≥ 1	Above channel average
≥ 2	Strong breakout — well worth investigating
≥ 3	Exceptional — viral-level outperformance

Example prompts:

What is YouTube suggesting right now in the AI tools niche?

Find breakout videos from small channels with an outlier score above 2, sorted by outlier score

Show me trending YouTube Shorts in the personal finance category published this month

Find videos YouTube is pushing from channels with under 50K subscribers that have unusually high views

Show me the top 10 most-liked suggested videos in the business niche from the last 30 days

Filters & parameters:

All parameters are optional. Filters only apply to videos where the field exists.

Parameter	Type	Description
`query`	string	Keyword search on video title
`ytChannelId`	string	Exact channel ID
`category`	string	Keyword match on category name (e.g. `Finance`, `Gaming`)
`tag`	string	Keyword match on tags
`isFromHomeFeed`	boolean	`true` = home feed only; `false` = exclude home feed; omit = all
`isShorts`	boolean	Filter by Shorts flag
`isMadeWithAi`	boolean	Filter AI-generated content
`isMonetized`	boolean	Filter by monetization status
`ageRestricted`	boolean	Filter by age-restriction flag
`minViews` / `maxViews`	number	View-count range
`minLikes` / `maxLikes`	number	Like-count range
`minComments` / `maxComments`	number	Comment-count range
`minDuration` / `maxDuration`	number	Duration range in seconds
`minEngagementRate` / `maxEngagementRate`	number	`(likes + comments) / views` ratio
`minPublishDate` / `maxPublishDate`	string	ISO date, e.g. `2026-01-01`
`minSubscriberCount` / `maxSubscriberCount`	number	Maps to `channelSubCount`
`minOutlierScore` / `maxOutlierScore`	number	`≥1` above avg, `≥2` strong breakout, `≥3` exceptional
`sortBy`	enum	`createdAt` (default), `views`, `outlierScore`, `publishDate`, `subscriberCount`, `likes`, `engagementRate`, `duration`
`sortOrder`	enum	`asc`, `desc` (default)
`limit`	number	Results per page — 1–100, default 20
`page`	number	Page number, default 1

Pagination:

Ask your AI to "show more results" or "get the next page" — it will increment the page parameter automatically. The response includes hasMore: true/false to signal whether more results exist.

Combine isFromHomeFeed: true with minOutlierScore: 2 and maxSubscriberCount: 50000 to find small channels that YouTube's algorithm is actively amplifying — a strong early signal for emerging niches.

Advanced Use Cases

Niche trend scouting

Search YouTube suggested videos in the "stoicism" niche from the last 14 days, sort by outlier score descending, show me the top 10 breakout titles and what they have in common

Small-channel opportunity finder

Find viral videos from channels with under 5K subscribers that have over 200K views — what topics are blowing up for tiny channels right now?

Content gap analysis

Search YouTube suggested videos about "AI video editing" published in the last 30 days, then find which angles or formats are underrepresented in the results

Shorts trend research

Show me the top YouTube Shorts being suggested in the fitness niche right now, filtered to channels under 100K subscribers

Competitor breakout monitoring

Check if channel UCxxxxxxx has any videos in the suggested catalog with an outlier score above 2

Troubleshooting

No results returned

Widen your date range or reduce the number of filters — highly specific combinations may return zero matches
For search_viral_videos_small_channels, remember the 90-day window: videos older than 90 days are excluded

Outlier scores missing

Outlier score is precomputed at ingest. Very new videos (indexed within the last few hours) may not have a score yet — try again after a short wait

Subscriber count filter not matching

channelSubCount may be absent on some documents in the viral collection. If you're filtering by subscriber count and getting fewer results than expected, try removing the subscriber filter and scanning results manually

Quota limit reached

If you've hit your daily limit, Upgrade to Pro for higher quota limits

Rate Limits

Tool & Description	Free	Lite	Pro
YouTube suggested videos`search_youtube_suggested_videos`	20	150	300
Viral videos — small channels`search_viral_videos_small_channels`	20	150	300
Faceless outlier videos`faceless_outliers_videos`	20	150	300

Per user · resets every 24 hours

Upgrade to Pro →

What's Next?

Similar Videos — Find videos similar to any reference video by content and format
YouTube Tools — Channel outliers, search, videos, shorts, and playlists
Channel Analytics — Deep-dive metrics for any channel behind a breakout video
Niche Overview — Understand the niche behind any trending channel
Similar Channels — Find more channels like the ones behind breakout videos