YouTube spells out which AI-generated videos can't be monetized

YouTube is tightening its rules on so-called AI slop, clarifying how content on the platform can be monetized. The company’s updated policy spells out three types of “inauthentic content” that creators cannot monetize through the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).

The move builds on an existing policy: last year, YouTube said it would stop creators from generating revenue off “inauthentic content,” including mass-produced and repetitive videos that AI tools have made easier to churn out. The recent update doesn’t introduce a new policy so much as add nuance to the existing one.

The first category covers generic, repetitive, or template-based content — material that AI, CGI, or templates can produce with little variation from video to video, filling a channel with cookie-cutter uploads. YouTube’s trust and safety chief, Matt Halprin, said in a Creator Insider video last week that even tutorial videos could fall under this category if they reproduce content already prevalent on the platform rather than offering something original.

The second category targets “off-putting” content — material designed to be distressing or emotionally manipulative in order to chase views, such as a video showing an animal in distress before someone rescues it. “We’ve heard from our viewers that that’s not something that they like,” Halprin said, noting it makes viewers not want to return to the channel or the platform. Channels built around this kind of content lose YPP access regardless of whether AI made it.

The third category concerns AI personas — AI-made representations of real people — being used to discuss sensitive subjects such as finance, law, health, and medical issues. YouTube says it doesn’t want to incentivize creators to use AI personas for that kind of content.

Halprin framed AI as a tool that, used well, enhances creativity and produces more high-quality content — the kind YouTube wants in YPP — but the same tool can just as easily mass-produce generic, low-effort videos for content farming, which it does not want. Any channel with too much of any of the three categories loses its ability to monetize, he said.

The stakes are high for YouTube: YPP, which lets creators earn through advertising and subscriptions, is central to the platform’s business as it competes with TV and other streamers for ad dollars. Google’s video platform now generates more ad revenue than rival streamers and has overtaken Netflix in average daily views worldwide. The policy clarifications took effect on July 16 and apply to all YPP members.

Why it matters

As AI tools make it trivial to flood YouTube with low-effort videos, the platform’s monetization rules function as a quality filter that shapes what kind of AI-assisted content creators have a financial incentive to make.