YouTube is relying on AI in its latest crusade against seekers of an ad-free video-watching experience. The company recently announced plans to use AI models to make ads more persuasive by strategically placing them within the video.
At its Brandcast 2025 event in New York, YouTube revealed it will deploy Google’s Gemini AI to analyze videos to optimize placement of ads. The AI will be used to identify key moments or “Peak Points” in the video where viewers are most likely to be engaged and too invested to stop watching it in order to avoid the ad.
The AI supposedly goes a step beyond the existing histogram on the YouTube scrub bar that shows “Most replayed” moments in a video. But the parameters that YouTube will use to detect these peaks are not immediately evident.
YouTube doesn’t specify other aspects of the ads, such as their duration or whether they will be skippable. However, it can be easily assumed that YouTube is unlikely to place smaller ads or ones you can easily skip, since any of those traits will refute the purpose of placing ads precisely at the most intense moments in the video.
While unpleasant for viewers, this is probably good news for content creators who could see their revenue from ads spike up. Whether it will also result in better click-through rates (CTR) for advertisers will likely depend on the relevance of ads for viewers.
All of these tactics are ultimately designed to make viewers switch to YouTube Premium, and the company has been testing various means to convince you to switch, from offering limited ad-free previews to bringing plans with fewer ads. Of course, YouTube is still fighting to make ad blockers less serviceable, especially if you use Chrome as the default browser.
In addition to these strategic ads, YouTube said it would broadcast the NFL Week One game from Brazil on September 5th live on the platform for everyone. Viewers would not need a subscription to watch the game.