As AI models become more powerful, YouTube will no longer rely solely on creators to label AI-generated videos. The platform will soon begin labelling videos on creators’ behalf, with its internal systems automatically applying labels when it detects that “significant photorealistic AI” has been used.
YouTube is also working to make AI labels more prominent so users can easily identify them across both long-form and short-form videos. AI labels have been in use on the platform for over two years, after YouTube updated its AI policies and introduced a feature in Creator Studio that allowed users to disclose whether their videos included AI-generated content that could be mistaken for a real person.
The company says its policy around AI labels has not changed, but going forward, the platform will take a more active role in policing content. Following the launch of Gemini Omni, a new family of multimodal AI models unveiled at Google I/O last week, YouTube will now use new internal signals to help identify AI-generated content and label it accordingly for viewers. This means that if creators fail to disclose their use of AI, YouTube will label the videos for them.
YouTube also plans to make its AI labels more consistent and visible. For long-form videos, the labels will now appear directly below the video player, above the description section. For Shorts, the labels will be embedded directly on the main page.
The updated placement is expected to make it easier for viewers to identify photorealistic, AI-altered, or AI-generated content on the platform. However, for videos that are only slightly altered, animated, or clearly unrealistic, the label will appear only within the expanded description section.
YouTube has further clarified that AI labels will not affect a video’s recommendations or monetisation.
