YouTube is rolling out significant AI capabilities in 2026, according to CEO Neal Mohan’s annual letter, marking the platform’s most ambitious push into artificial intelligence-powered creator tools yet.
The announcement highlights four key areas YouTube is prioritizing this year: expanding AI creation tools, combating harmful synthetic media, supporting creators’ intellectual property rights, and maintaining content quality while reducing “AI slop.”
AI-Powered Creation Tools
Creators will soon be able to generate Shorts using their own AI likeness, alongside new capabilities to produce games with simple text prompts and experiment with music generation. The platform reported that over 1 million channels used its AI creation tools daily in December 2025, demonstrating significant creator adoption.
YouTube Shorts, which now averages 200 billion daily views, will become the primary testing ground for these new features. The company is also expanding Shorts with image posts, competing directly with TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Balancing Innovation with Safety
While expanding creative tools, YouTube is taking steps to prevent misuse. The platform will clearly label content created by YouTube’s AI products and require creators to disclose realistic altered or synthetic content. YouTube has also built likeness-detection technology to help creators identify and request removal of unauthorized AI-generated content featuring their likeness.
To combat low-quality AI-generated content, YouTube is building on existing systems that have successfully combatted spam and clickbait, aiming to maintain the high-quality viewing experience users expect.
AI for Understanding and Accessibility
Beyond creation, YouTube is leveraging AI to help viewers learn more about content they watch. The platform’s “Ask” tool enabled over 20 million users to learn details about videos in December alone, with questions ranging from song lyrics to recipe ingredients.
Accessibility is also improving, with YouTube averaging over 6 million daily viewers watching auto-dubbed content—demonstrating how AI can make videos available to broader audiences.