Each year, YouTube shares its “big bets” for the year ahead, and the company revealed its four main priorities for 2026 in a blog post this week. Unsurprisingly, AI creation and viewing tools were one of YouTube’s big bets for 2025 — and the platform is doubling down on the technology as we enter 2026. Notably, while YouTube also mentioned AI guardrails last year, the company plans to push back even harder against AI “slop” and deepfakes over the course of 2026.
YouTube says that its creators are “reinventing entertainment” as they produce studio shows and buy Hollywood lots to level up from user-generated content to something more. The brand also touted that YouTube Shorts average 200 billion daily views, and previewed other kinds of posts entering the Shorts feed. Secondly, YouTube is laser-focused on making the platform safe for kids and teens, not excluding them from it.
YouTube is leaning harder into AI creation in 2026
AI isn’t going anywhere on YouTube — in fact, it has been “the quiet engine” driving innovations and features on the platform for years, according to the post. However, YouTube seems to be taking a more measured stance on AI this year, acknowledging potential pitfalls and the need for transparency.
YouTube says more than one million channels used the platform’s AI creation tools daily in December 2025. It’s also helping creators in other ways, like content moderation for comments or age verification for viewers. In fact, YouTube has gone as far as to use an AI-powered system to figure out the best time to show a YouTube Shopping product tag in a video.
That’s nothing compared to what YouTube is planning to use AI for later this year, though. The platform is teasing AI-generated YouTube Shorts that use a creator’s own likeness. Soon, you might see AI-generated creators on your YouTube Shorts feed. Additionally, the platform will add AI-generated games and music experiments, all leveraging AI, to YouTube.
Still, YouTube promises that “AI will remain a tool for expression, not a replacement.”
YouTube is taking a hard stance against deepfakes and slop”
While there’s still plenty of room for AI optimism at YouTube, it’s nice to see YouTube acknowledge the real concerns about AI-generated content on the platform. Specifically, YouTube is reinforcing its commitment to transparency. It requires creators to disclose when realistic altered or synthetic content is shared on the platform, and YouTube itself labels content created or edited by YouTube AI.
We require that creators disclose when realistic content is made with altered or synthetic media, including Gen AI Labels may then appear within the video description information, and if content is related to sensitive topics like health, news, elections, or finance, we may also display a label on the video itself.
YouTube
YouTube is also evolving the existing Content ID system to help creators spot and manage when AI-generated content uses their likeness on the platform. From the legal perspective, YouTube is supporting legislation restricting deepfake content, including the NO FAKES Act.
Crucially, YouTube has an AI “slop” problem, and it knows it. By slop, we mean “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” It has a definition because Merriam-Webster named “slop” its 2025 Word of the Year. That’s how prolific low-quality, AI-generated content is on the internet today.
YouTube is taking a stand against slop, weighing its goal of offering a place of free expression against a need for high-quality content.
“To reduce the spread of low quality AI content, we’re actively building on our established systems that have been very successful in combatting spam and clickbait, and reducing the spread of low quality, repetitive content,” YouTube explained in the post.
From a viewer perspective, YouTube watchers can expect AI to continue impacting the streaming experience, with features like the Ask tool or autodubbed content.
YouTube is still putting creators first in 2026
AI is a touchy subject for creators, and for good reason. However, it looks like YouTube will continue putting creators first, even as AI tools become commonplace in the creation and editing processes. These current tools are optional, and YouTube is taking critical steps to fight slop and deepfakes.
That should resonate well with creators. Perhaps the bigger point of impact for YouTube is that it continues to value creator content. It does an excellent job compensating creators for their work, and YouTube highlighted that by the numbers. It paid over $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over just a four-year span, and that’s a staggering figure.
What’s even more impressive is YouTube’s claim that its creator ecosystem “contributed $55 billion to GDP and supported more than 490,000 full-time jobs.”
If YouTube continues supporting creators, both by offering monetary incentives and by building AI tools that help them instead of try to replace them, 2026 should be another big year for the platform.
