Katarzyna Petru
End of making money on autopilot
YouTube is finally taking action against creators who have little to do with "creation." From 15th July, the platform will begin to enforce rules that have so far been dormant – if you want to earn money, you must publish original and authentic content. Until now, these rules mainly targeted those who copied others' videos, but now the focus is on those who use generative AI to mass-produce junk content. We're talking about videos created without any human involvement: AI spouting random phrases, stock backgrounds, news copied from Google News. It's not just meaningless – it's simply a flood that poisons the entire YouTube ecosystem.
AI as a tool? Yes. As a generator of garbage? No.
Google does not say "no" to technology as such. The problem is not that someone uses AI – the problem is how they use it. More and more channels are generating "true crime" stories about murders that never took place. The victims and perpetrators are fictitious, but that does not stop the algorithms from promoting this content and driving it to millions of views. Other channels produce music generated by AI – banal, shallow, but looped in a way that solicits listens. Still others provide commentary on events – without commentary. Essentially, these are AI-clones of what can be read on news portals, only packaged in synthetic voice and devoid of anything that could be called added value.
Changes in the Partner Programme Will Hit the Masses
YouTube announces that it will no longer reward this. The changes were announced by Rene Ritchie, the head of the platform's editorial team. From now on, algorithms are set to recognise low-quality and automatically generated content, and channels that rely mainly on such content will gradually be excluded from monetisation. Importantly – YouTube does not intend to target people commenting on news or analysing events, but emphasises that the key will be originality of perspective and uniqueness of interpretation. If the material replicates what is already on dozens of other channels, and the only thing that changes is the voice and the order of sentences – there is nothing to expect.
Attempt to Save Platform Quality
Behind this decision lies much more than just a battle with clickbait. It is an attempt to save the quality of YouTube, which increasingly resembles a dump of AI-generated content, created solely to boost reach. Google – which itself develops AI tools – has begun to recognise that without a clear boundary, the platform will start to eat its own tail. Therefore, it was decided to cut off the power: without the ability to monetise, junk channels will likely cease to exist. Will this be enough? Hard to say. But at least there has finally been a signal that quality and creativity again have a role to play.
