Will AI Answers Take Views Away From YouTube Creators?

Neal Mohan says YouTube has not seen AI answers cut consumption of the videos they draw on, at least not yet. Ask on YouTube is video-forward and creator-forward. It surfaces those videos rather than replacing them with text.

A creator can put a lot of production value into a 15-minute video on how to run a marathon, then watch a search print that advice as text with no view on the video. A lot of that learning still needs the picture. Fixing a garage door is a step-by-step that text only partly covers, so Ask YouTube brings the video forward. Across YouTube, this kind of search is a sliver next to watching a documentary on a television screen.

The new answers can also pull up a stretch that was not getting views, including two minutes inside a ten-minute video that match a very specific question. That is a win for the creator and for the person trying to learn. The experience is still new.