NEW YORK, September 17 (Reuters) – On her 20th birthday, YouTube can’t recognize as a crude video site that began as the realm of young amateur users who publish unspoken, budget clips.
YouTube has led 2.7 billion users, including celebrities like British pop star Dua Lipa who shares professional-grade content, making it the most popular way for Americans to watch TV, and is expected to eat up Disney’s Dis.N media revenue this year.
On Tuesday, the company’s year at the YouTube product launch event, executives from the platform, owned by Alphabet, have laid out a vision that YouTube will take over Ai in the coming decades.
YouTube spent much of its event advocating for video creators as the future of media where media executives can now work without the constraints imposed on them. Instead, they are helped by a host of artificial intelligence-enabled tools that either rethink the production process or create new content entirely. This is the concept that Hollywood fought during the months of 2023 strikes.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and other presenters have rejected the idea, repeatedly saying that the rapid expansion of AI capabilities will not replace the work of content creators.
“These are tools, and they’re really all,” Mohan said. “Don’t get it wrong. No studio, network, tech companies or AI tools own the future of entertainment.”
Rather, Mohan said making videos on YouTube should be viewed as a “workable, respectable and sustainable career path” as AI will increasingly be at the forefront of YouTube’s creation process over the next 20 years.
According to data from Nielsen, YouTube is leading Disney, backed by Google’s Deep Pocket and market-leading AI know-how. YouTube won 13.4% of US viewers in July, while Disney was 9.4%.
Analysts at Moffettnathanson recently predicted that YouTube revenue will also outperform Disney’s revenue this year. The renowned entertainment company, they estimated, had nearly $600 billion in media revenue last year.
Although Alphabet does not regularly report YouTube revenue, it has been revealed that it combined YouTube ads and subscription revenues exceeded $50 billion in the four quarters that close in September 2024.
AI boosts new tools deployment
YouTube on Tuesday introduced the new product by slamming successful personalities on platforms such as Dua Lipa, Mark Rober, Smosh and Brandon B.
For some, these content creators (each of which runs a channel with at least 16 million subscribers) have replaced late-night television show hosts where viewers have collapsed. In some cases, these creators have subscribers on social media that rival Hollywood stars’ followers, highlighting their appeal to a new generation of media consumers.
On stage, Lipa believed that YouTube helped her connect with her fans more intimately. Asked by Reuters in an email, the spokesman did not immediately respond with comments if there were concerns when Lipa intended to use AI features.
Mohan said YouTube has paid over $100 billion in content makers over the past four years. Some video makers are reinvesting some of their revenues to build production facilities in the style of Hollywood Studio Lots, creating increasingly elaborate and professional videos.
The company tripled the number of new features introduced this year compared to last year’s event.
Most of the over 30 new tools that revealed ICORTOMED AI either revamped the production process or created new content. This tool has the ability to automatically embed related shopping links in your video. YouTube has also announced AI-generated videos to attach to audio-only podcasts and speech-to-song generators.
Amjad Hanif, vice president of YouTube, managing creator-oriented products, told Reuters in an interview that the pace of rapid product development could be attributed to YouTube staff themselves using ideas more quickly using AI.
