More than 20% of YouTube's feed is now "AI slop," report finds

The US ranks third in AI slop consumption and subscribers

by · TechSpot

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The takeaway: Not only are more than half the articles on the web created by AI, but over 21% of YouTube videos being show to new users is "AI Slop." That's according to a new report, which also found that the US is in third place when it comes to consumption of these low-quality generated videos.

Video editing firm Kapwing highlights AI slop's definition as careless, low-quality content generated by computer applications and used to farm views and subscriptions or sway political opinion.

But for all the pushback against AI slop and brainrot – low-quality, trivial online content -- their proliferation on YouTube is hard to avoid.

To get an idea of how much of YouTube consists of AI-generated videos, Kapwing simulated the experience of an untainted YouTube Shorts algorithm by establishing a new YouTube account. It then noted the occurrence of AI slop among the first 500 videos in the feed. In total, 104 (21%) of the first 500 videos were AI-generated, while 165 (33%) were classed as brainrot.

Kapwing also looked at global consumption of AI slop. Based on views alone, South Korea leads the way – its 11 trending AI channels have a combined figure of over 8.45 billion views. Pakistan is second with 5.34 billion views, while the US is third with 3.39 billion.

It's estimated that the Three Minutes Wisdom channel, which accounts for almost a quarter of the country's view count, earns around $4 million annually from ad income.

The US is also third when it comes to the most subscribers to these channels. The 14.4 million subscribers in the country put it just beneath second-place Egypt (17.9 million) and leader Spain (20.22 million).

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The world's most-subscribed AI slop channel is a US-based Spanish-language channel called Cuentos Facinantes [sic], which has 5.95 million subs. Its Dragon Ball-themed videos have racked up 1.28 billion views.

India's Bandar Apna Dost has the most views of any AI channel: 2.07 billion. It's also the highest earner, with an estimated $4.25 million per year.

It's not just YouTube, of course. Social media, online articles, images – huge swathes of what was once almost entirely the work of humans are now generated by AI. It's no wonder that "slop" is Merriam-Webster's word of the year.