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YouTube CEO Neil Mohan announced that creators will be able to create short videos using AI-generated versions of themselves in 2026.
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The feature is part of YouTube’s growing AI toolkit, which already includes an AI chatbot for analytics, auto-dubbing, and AI-generated video clips
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YouTube Shorts currently average 200 billion views per day and have become an important testing ground for generative AI capabilities.
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The announcement comes as YouTube works to balance creator innovation with cracking down on AI-generated spam and low-quality content.
YouTube Shorts feeds are becoming more artificial. YouTube CEO Neil Mohan revealed today in his annual letter that creators will soon be able to create short videos using their own AI caricatures, meaning they’ll be able to film themselves without being in front of the camera. The feature will be introduced sometime in 2026, but YouTube hasn’t released any details yet.
Your YouTube Shorts feed may soon look like a deepfake convention. YouTube CEO Neil Mohan announced the news today in his annual letter. Creators will be able to create short videos featuring their AI portraits later this year. This means, in theory, your favorite YouTubers could record short videos without ever touching the camera or appearing on your screen.
Mohan did not provide details. A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge that more information about the launch date and how the feature will actually work will be released soon. But it’s the latest addition to the increasingly ambitious AI arsenal for creators on the platform. YouTube is also rolling out AI tools that allow creators to create games from text prompts (already in closed beta) and experiment with music generation.
If it looks familiar, it’s because YouTube has been quietly building up AI features for creators over the past few years. The platform already offers AI chatbots for channel analysis, AI-powered automatic dubbing that can translate and dub videos in different languages, and AI-generated video clips for shorts. These aren’t niche features either. Shorts alone average 200 billion views per day, making it one of the most important testing grounds for AI-generated content in the world.
But this is where things get complicated. While YouTube is expanding these creative possibilities, the platform is also grappling with an influx of AI spam and low-quality generated content. Mohan’s letter acknowledges this tension head on. “Over the past 20 years, we have learned not to impose our biases on the creator ecosystem,” he writes. However, “with this openness comes a responsibility to maintain the high-quality viewing experience that people want.”
