More than 20% of the videos on YouTube were recognized as AI-slops
More than 20% of the videos that YouTube offers to new users belong to the category of so-called AI—slop, low-quality content created using artificial intelligence (AI). This was reported on December 28 by The Guardian newspaper, citing a study by Kapwing.
According to the publication, such AI content is actively distributed on social networks and brings the authors about $117 million a year. Kapwing's research, which examined 15,000 of the most popular YouTube channels (top 100 in each country), revealed 278 channels consisting entirely of AI-slops. Together, they have gained more than 63 billion views and attracted 221 million subscribers.
To assess the scale of the phenomenon, the researchers also created a new YouTube account and analyzed the first 500 recommended videos. It turned out that 104 of them, or over 20%, were generated using AI, and about a third more were classified as brainrot, low—quality content created specifically to retain and monetize audience attention.
Experts note that AI-slop is rapidly spreading on major digital platforms, from X to Meta (an organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) and YouTube, forming a new reality of online content. It is characterized by a lack of context, high engagement, and global reach. An additional analysis by The Guardian showed that almost 10% of the fastest-growing YouTube channels actively use AI generation, and despite the platform's efforts to combat unreliable content, such channels continue to gain millions of views.
Earlier, on December 15, the American Merriam-Webster dictionary chose the term "slop" as the word of 2025, which means massive low-quality content created by artificial intelligence (AI). As explained in the dictionary, "slop" refers to absurd videos, ridiculous advertising images, fake news and other low-grade media products generated by AI.
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