More than 20% of videos YouTube shows to new users are 'AI Slop'; Study gives insight into a new industry

More than 20 per cent of the videos that the YouTube algorithm shows to new users are "AI-slops", referring to low-quality AI-generated content, a new study has found. The study was conducted by video-editing company Kapwing, which surveyed 15,000 of the world's most popular YouTube channels – the top 100 in every country – and found that 278 of them contain only AI slop.

The videos are intended to farm views and tend to have no meaning. According to Kapwing, these AI slop channels have amassed more than 63 billion views and a whopping 221 million subscribers. These videos have managed to generate about $117m (£90m) in revenue each year, according to estimates.

To conduct their study, the researchers also created a new YouTube account and found that 104 of the first 500 videos recommended to their feed were AI slop. They noted that one-third of the 500 videos were “brainrot”, a category that includes AI slop and other low-quality content made to monetise attention.

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A look at the rapidly growing industry

The research gave an insight into a rapidly expanding industry that is saturating big social media platforms – from X to Meta to YouTube – and defining a new era of content: decontextualised, addictive and international. According to a Guardian report, nearly 10 per cent of YouTube's fastest-growing channels were AI slop, racking up millions of views despite the platform’s efforts to curb “inauthentic content”.

Meanwhile, the channels found by Kapwing are globally distributed and globally watched. These channels have millions of subscribers in Spain, 20 million people, or nearly half the country’s population, who follow the trending AI channels. AI channels have 18 million followers in Egypt, 14.5 million in the US, and 13.5 million in Brazil.

It is still hard to say exactly how significant these channels are compared with the vast sea of content found on the platform. YouTube also does not release information on how many views the entity has yearly or how many of these are from AI content.