Neal Mohan at Cannes Lions 2025: What 20 years of YouTube reveals about creativity’s future
Jun 18, 2025 – [[read-time]] minute read
Editor’s Note: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan joined the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where he delivered a keynote and was joined by top creators Amelia Dimoldenberg, Alex Cooper, and Brandon Baum. Here is the transcript of his remarks, which has been edited for clarity.
Good morning, everyone!
It’s wonderful to be here in Cannes, recognizing the latest in creative storytelling and innovation. I can’t think of a better place to celebrate YouTube’s 20th birthday.
It all began with a 19-second video: “Me at the Zoo.” Then, pioneers like iJustine, Smosh and Philip DeFranco started uploading and solidified “creator” as a dream job for millions around the world.
Video by video, creator by creator, YouTube became a driving force in culture. A place where trends are born, movements are ignited, and creativity is constantly redefined. Anyone with an idea — whether an individual, artist, studio, or brand — can become a creator here.
“ Today, YouTube is THE epicenter of culture. I’m not talking about forgettable fads or one-hit-wonders we scroll right past. I mean culture with a capital 'C.'”
The place where day after day, year after year, the events, conversations and voices that define the moment break through and leave their mark.
But today isn't just about celebrating the last 20 years, it's about casting our vision for the next 20 — and why I believe the next revolution in creativity and brand building will be made on YouTube.
At YouTube, creators have been captivating us since the beginning. In the early days, they uploaded grainy, unscripted videos from their bedrooms. They honed their craft, built communities, and spawned a new creative class.
Today, creators are the startups of Hollywood.
Like most startups, these creators are reimagining the industry that inspired them and creating new jobs for writers, editors, actors and producers. Some are even building state-of-the-art studios.
Take Inoxtag, a creator here in France, who wanted the world to see him climb Mount Everest. He assembled a full crew — screenwriters,, graphic artists, and a lead director.
Last year, his debut documentary, Kaizen, premiered in both cinemas across the country and on YouTube, where it racked up 17 million views in less than 48 hours.
YouTube allows you to be your authentic self in the sense that you have complete creative control. I’m directing [and] writing the episodes, [how long] I want them to be. Those personal touches make a world of difference.”
Alex Cooper Creator and host of Call Her DaddyNow these creators are coming to the biggest screen in the house – the television. Viewers now watch over one billion hours of YouTube on their TVs every day… And for more than half of the top 100 most watched YouTube channels in the world, TV is their most watched screen.
With these audiences in mind, creators are serializing their shows and releasing them in HD, like The Broski Report, a weekly show celebrating pop culture.
Creators are pioneering the new TV... and it doesn't look like the old TV.
When viewers tune in, they want to watch what matters to them, unconstrained by format, genre or style.
They want to experience the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, then watch past music performances by their favorite artists. They want to livestream the Cannes Film Festival alongside creators’ red carpet reactions and Palme D’or predictions. They want to watch highlights of the U.S. and France Olympic basketball matchup, followed by a two-hour podcast with a breakdown from NBA legends.
And let’s talk about podcasts, one of the most relevant formats driving culture today. On YouTube alone, one billion viewers are watching podcasts every month.
My show started 10 years ago... I actually pitched it to broadcasters. And everyone said, no, so then I decided to put it on YouTube, and it's the best thing that I've ever done.
Amelia Dimoldenberg Creator and host of Chicken Shop DateRotten Mango, hosted by creator Stephanie Soo, gained over 2 million new subscribers in just a year after she began incorporating video. She’s now topping our new weekly YouTube podcast charts.
Creators clearly have huge cultural power… backed by the relationships they build with their communities of ride-or-die fans. These fandoms don’t just follow culture, they shape it.
And rather than just watching a video, fans put their own unique spin on it. Last fall, Glitch dropped the animated dark comedy series, The Amazing Digital Circus. The pilot episode alone racked up over 300 million views. But the response from fans went even more viral. The songs, memes and spinoff content they created about the show collectively generated 25 billion views.
Fandom itself is becoming a form of creative expression — everything from reaction videos to fan art and more. And one of the easiest ways to jump in is through short form video.
At YouTube, we’re seeing a huge uptick in the amount of people creating — and watching — Shorts.
“ Today, I’m excited to share a new milestone: YouTube Shorts are now averaging over 200 billion daily views!”
One last, critical point about these communities of fans: they don’t just exist online. Fandoms that start on YouTube drive culture in the real world.
In 2013, a group of creators came together over a shared love of gaming, calling themselves the Sidemen. Today, they’re one of YouTube’s largest collectives with more than 150 million subscribers across their channels.
They’ve created their own merchandise lines, opened a physical store, established a fast-food chain, and more. Every year, they compete against other creators in the Sidemen Charity Match. This year, they sold out Wembley Stadium — just like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and BTS.
This explosion of creativity—from fan-made content to real-world moments—proves that fandom is no longer just about consumption; it's a powerful force steering culture.
Now there’s another important way that creators are showing us what the future looks like: AI.
Like startups, creators are among the earliest adopters and fastest movers when it comes to cutting-edge technology.
Tools that empower storytellers don’t just make things easier. They change who gets to tell the story in the first place.
Brandon Baum CreatorI am incredibly excited by the potential of AI tools to empower human creativity.
We’re already seeing this on YouTube. Veo is Google Deepmind’s video generation model which lets you create AI-generated backgrounds and video clips for Shorts. We’ve put this model into the hands of creators with Dream Screen. Last month, Google announced the newest model: Veo 3, which vastly improves video quality and incorporates audio.
Today, I’m proud to share that Veo 3 will be coming to YouTube Shorts later this summer.
I believe these tools will open new creative lanes for everyone to explore. But what’s even more exciting than what you see on the screen, is how AI is helping creatives behind the scenes.
Language, for example, is one of the biggest barriers to growing a global audience. Our Auto Dubbing feature already translates videos across 9 different languages with 11 more coming soon, and dramatically increases the potential audiences a creator or brand can reach.
In the six months since creators started using this feature, we’ve already dubbed more than 20 million videos using AI.
The possibilities with AI are limitless.
A lot can change in a generation. Entertainment itself has changed more in the last two decades than any other time in history. Creators led this revolution.
My bet for the next 20 years? Creators will flip formats, blend genres, and push deeper into the mainstream — as brand ambassadors, big business ventures and visionary storytellers. Communities will continue to surprise us with the power of their collective fandom. And cutting-edge AI technology will push the limits of human creativity.
My biggest bet is that YouTube will continue to be the stage where it all happens. Where anyone with a story to share can turn their dream into a career… and anyone with a voice can bring people together and change the world.
Thanks for being a part of this journey with us.