YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos

As AI video models grow more advanced, YouTube is moving beyond relying solely on creators to flag AI-generated content — the platform will now automatically label such videos on its own. The company announced Wednesday that its internal systems will apply labels whenever they detect "significant photorealistic AI" has been used.

YouTube is also making its AI labels more noticeable, so they're easier to spot across both long-form videos and YouTube Shorts.

AI labels have been in place on the platform for over two years, ever since YouTube updated its AI policies and introduced a tool in Creator Studio requiring creators to disclose videos containing AI content that could be mistaken for a real person, place, or event. Videos that clearly depicted animated or imaginative scenarios — like a unicorn prancing through a fantasy world — did not need labeling.

The company says its policy on AI labeling hasn't changed, but it will take a more active role in monitoring content on its platform. The move follows Google's release of Gemini Omni, a new family of multimodal AI models at its Google I/O developer conference last week, capable of producing high-quality videos that demonstrate an understanding of physics, culture, history, and science.

Starting in May, YouTube says it will use new internal signals to help identify AI-generated content and label it accordingly. This doesn't let creators off the hook for disclosing their use of AI — but if they fail to do so, YouTube will apply the label for them.

Creators whose content is misidentified can update the disclosure status on a YouTube video, but they won't be able to remove labels if the content was created using YouTube's own AI tools, such as Veo or Dream Screen, according to the company.

Labels will also be permanently attached to videos when the content includes C2PA metadata indicating it was fully AI-generated. (Recently, OpenAI joined Nvidia, Kakao, and Eleven Labs in committing to the C2PA standard.)

The addition of automatic AI detection comes shortly after YouTube expanded its AI deepfake detection, which now lets any adult scan YouTube specifically for face matches, following initial tests with celebrities, public figures, politicians, and other creators.

YouTube also says it will make its AI labels more consistent and prominent.

Previously, labels appeared in the expanded description unless the video touched on more sensitive topics like health or news; in those cases, a prominent label appeared directly on the video itself.

Now, labels will appear directly below the video player, above the description for long-form videos, and directly on the video overlay for YouTube Shorts.

Image Credits: YouTube

The company says moving the labels will make them more obvious to anyone encountering photorealistic, AI-altered, or AI-generated content on the site.

Meanwhile, for AI video that is only slightly altered, animated, or unrealistic — like the prancing unicorn mentioned earlier — the label will appear in the expanded description only.

Notably, YouTube says AI labels won't affect how a video is recommended or its ability to generate revenue.

In addition to policing AI content, the company has been investing in AI for features like its interactive search tool, Ask YouTube, a playlist generator for YouTube Music, AI video summaries, and other generative AI creation tools.