“It’s becoming harder to detect what’s real and what’s AI-generated. This is particularly critical when it comes to deepfakes,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wrote in his annual letter.
Even as Google pours billions into AI data centres and infrastructure, its video platform – YouTube is grappling with a surge of AI-generated content that is increasingly cluttering users’ feeds. In October last year, YouTube said it was expanding its likeness detection tool, which gives creators the ability to find content where their “face may have been altered or generated by AI.”
“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,” Neal added.
In December 2025, YouTube says more than 20 million users used its Ask tool, which uses AI to answer questions like “What’s the story behind this song’s lyrics?” or “What ingredients do I need to make this recipe?”. The platform says more than 6 million daily viewers also watched at least 10 minutes of auto-dubbed content.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said that the platform will also be bringing more AI tools, including one that will allow creators make Shorts using their “own likeness, produce games with a simple text prompt, and experiment with music.”
Share
YouTube is also rolling a bunch of AI features for creators. (Image: Instagram/@neal_mohan) 
