From the YouTube CEO: Our big bets for 2025
Feb 11, 2025 – [[read-time]] minute read
TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the US.
This year marks YouTube’s 20th birthday. In two decades, YouTube has transformed culture through video and built a thriving creative economy. Today’s creators have moved from filming grainy videos of themselves on desktop computers to building studios and producing popular talk shows and feature-length films. And people aren’t just watching YouTube on their computers or phones. TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. (by watch time),1 and according to Nielsen, YouTube has been #1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years.2 And while it's still early days, AI is making a big difference in how people create and consume content on YouTube.
Twenty years in, it’s exciting to be at this moment. As I do every year, here are four big bets for YouTube in 2025.
#1: YouTube will remain the epicenter of culture.
For over a decade our mission has been to give everyone a voice and show them the world. That means we provide a platform for free speech and creative expression unlike any other. This vibrant ecosystem fuels cultural trends and fandom – music videos, trending Shorts, episodic content and hour-long live streams.
This was clear in the lead up to the 2024 U.S. Presidential election as Americans came to YouTube for election-related content from a broad range of sources, including Joe Rogan's interview with President Trump which garnered 55 million views (and counting) and primetime comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live. On election day alone, over 45 million viewers across the U.S. watched content related to the election on YouTube. Some even called it “the YouTube election,” echoing a similar sentiment to the 2008 “YouTube Debates.” From elections to the Olympics to Coachella to the Super Bowl and the Cricket World Cup, the world's biggest moments play out on YouTube.
One of the most relevant formats driving culture – podcasts – is thriving on YouTube. YouTube is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S. We’ve long invested in the podcast experience and creators have found that video makes this format even more compelling. This year we’ll roll out more tools to support podcasters, improve monetization for creators, and make it even easier to discover podcasts.
YouTube is also a stage for cultural exchange, where content transcends borders. In 2024, more than 95% of French creator Sarah Lezito’s watch time came from outside of France. And The Amazing Digital Circus, an animated series from the Australian-based channel GLITCH, became a global sensation, appearing in YouTube's annual End of Year list across eight countries.
More than just a platform, YouTube is the epicenter of culture, and we’re committed to fostering a vibrant community where everyone has a voice.
#2: YouTubers are becoming the startups of Hollywood.
Every thriving industry needs a healthy startup culture. Creators are bringing that startup mindset to Hollywood: leaning into new models of production, building studios to elevate their production quality, and exploring new creative avenues. They are creating a whole new playing field for entertainment and the businesses behind them.
Last November, I attended the opening of Alan Chikin Chow’s 10,000 square foot studio in Burbank. It was a bold, fun and colorful space filled with cutting edge equipment that produces incredible entertainment watched by millions around the world. And this isn’t just happening in Hollywood: Kinigra Deon is building a studio in Birmingham, Alabama, and last November the creators behind channels Mia Plays and Kouman opened their studio in North Vancouver.
We're committed to meeting creators where they are with tools and features that power their businesses and communities. We’ll continue to support their growth through more traditional revenue streams like ads and YouTube Premium, while introducing new ways for creators to partner with brands to bring their products to life.
Like startups everywhere, creators are also getting savvy about finding new ways to build their businesses, and we’re unlocking more ways for them to earn. Last year, more than 50% of channels earning five figures or more (USD)3 on YouTube made money from sources other than ads & YouTube Premium. Shopping recommendations are also becoming a key revenue stream for many creators, like Bora Claire who recently shared with us that she generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales from a single video reviewing cashmere cardigans. And last year we saw more than a 40% increase in channel memberships.4
We're also introducing a whole new level of interaction on the platform, giving fans more ways to engage with and support the creators and communities they love. We just opened Communities to thousands more creators and we'll continue expanding access this year. We'll also bring Hype, a new feature that helps fans rally around up and coming creators, to more markets around the world.
It’s still the very early stages of what creator-led startups will achieve and we'll be there to support them at every step of the journey.
#3: YouTube is the new television.
For more and more people, watching TV means watching YouTube. Viewers are watching, on average, over 1B hours of YouTube content on TVs daily, and TV is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S.5 But the "new" television doesn’t look like the "old" television. It’s interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TVs), podcasts, and live streams, right alongside the sports, sitcoms and talk shows people already love.
As more creators produce content for the big screen, we're bringing the best of YouTube to TVs, including a second screen experience that lets you use your phone to interact with the video you're watching on TV — for example, to leave a comment or make a purchase. We’re also experimenting with a new feature called Watch With, which enables creators to provide live commentary and real time reactions to games and events. We began testing this feature last year with the NFL and will experiment with other sports and types of content this year.
Our growth on connected TVs is also attracting new advertisers and we continue to introduce formats that work particularly well on the big screen, like QR codes and pause ads. Our subscription services are seeing a lot of momentum, too: YouTube TV has more than 8 million subscribers and YouTube Music & Premium has more than 100 million subscribers (including trials). We’ll continue to improve fan-favorite YouTube TV features, like Key Plays and multiview, and bring new benefits to YouTube Premium subscribers.
With innovative features, diverse content, and growing subscription services, we’re defining the television experience for a new generation.
#4: AI will make it easier to create and enhance the YouTube experience for everyone.
AI has long been a part of our journey, from powering recommendations to producing captions to helping us identify and remove harmful content. As we look ahead, we'll continue investing in AI tools that empower creators and artists throughout their creative journey. Last year we rolled out Dream Screen and Dream Track which generate image backgrounds, video backgrounds and instrumental soundtracks for Shorts. We’ll continue investing in these features, including integrating Veo 2 into Dream Screen soon.
As impressive as the generative models are, creators tell us they're most excited about the ways AI can help with their bread-and-butter production. That’s why we’re investing in tools to help them in the everyday work of creation, like coming up with a new video idea, title or thumbnail.
We're also using AI to help creators find new audiences. For videos with dubbed audio, more than 40% of the total watch time comes from viewers choosing to listen in a dubbed language. Last year we launched auto dubbing, which helps creators translate their videos into multiple languages with a touch of a button. We’ll soon make auto dubbing available for all creators in the YouTube Partner Program. We’ll continue to make improvements here and expand to more languages throughout the year.
Across all of our AI efforts, we’re focused on building the right guardrails to protect creatives on YouTube. This means developing new tools to help individuals detect and control how AI is used to depict them on YouTube. Through a pilot with the creative industry, some of the world’s most influential figures will soon have access to this early-stage technology and are providing critical feedback to help us build our detection systems and refine the controls.
We’re also laser focused on protecting our youngest users. That's why we built YouTube Kids and rolled out supervised accounts. That’s why we’ve invested in the learning and education experience: improving the way videos are shown in educational tools, making it easy to learn more about topics in a video and offering creators a way to produce courses. And that's why we'll use machine learning in 2025 to help us estimate a user’s age – distinguishing between younger viewers and adults – to help provide the best and most age appropriate experiences and protections.
We’ll continue to responsibly harness the power of AI to enhance the YouTube experience for everyone.
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Looking ahead to the next 20 years
It's remarkable to think that YouTube has been helping people create, learn, connect and more for two decades. As we embark on our next chapter, we're committed to empowering creators, fostering community, and continuing to redefine how the world watches, listens, and connects.
Thank you to our incredible community of creators, artists, viewers, advertisers and partners for making YouTube the platform it is today. We can't wait to see what we create together in the next 20 years.
- as of Dec 2024, across all YouTube services
- Nielsen’s The Gauge Report, Feb'23 - Jan'25
- in the YouTube Partner Program
- as of Dec 2024
- by watch time across all YouTube services, as of Dec 2024