For two decades, YouTube has been a stage, mirror, and driver of the cultural zeitgeist. With the rise of generative AI, new forms of storytelling, new formats – and new rules of the game are emerging for brands. In this conversation, Christopher Völpel, Head of Customer Solutions Engineering Central Europe at Google, and Henry Bose, Senior Creative Solution Expert at Google, explain how content production, creative processes, and brand communication on YouTube are changing due to AI – and why it's not just technology, but above all, mindset that counts.
Given the rapid technological developments, many are asking: What does the future of creative work on YouTube look like? Can the platform maintain its role in the age of AI?
Henry: YouTube was never relevant just because of technical perfection, but because it gives people a stage for original, unique ideas. What once began with a shaky zoo video is today a platform that covers everything from snapshots to studio productions. Generative AI reinforces this dynamic. When everyone can create professional-looking content, human curation and creative power move to the foreground. The decisive question is no longer if one can produce something, but what one has to say. AI becomes the tool that accelerates the leap from the first sketch to the finished work.
Christopher: I see it the same way. Generative AI can be a multiplier of creativity on YouTube because it lowers the entry barriers for video production. More people can test, refine, and implement ideas – in a fraction of the time. This promotes a new form of agility. This democratization of production value will unleash a new wave of content. Because creators can pick up on trends faster, develop them further, or set them themselves.
Over the years, YouTube has produced a variety of video formats – from classic vlogs to short-form formats like Shorts. How is generative AI fueling new content formats and storytelling approaches on YouTube?
Henry: The real magic happens where AI is not just a tool, but also a creative sparring partner. We are seeing initial experiments with "synthetic authenticity": Completely generated characters like Bigfoot appear as vloggers and entertain an audience as if they were real. This opens up new avenues for storytelling. Instead of just depicting reality, creators can use AI to create entire worlds – with the immediacy of a vlog.
Christopher: Generative AI primarily accelerates the implementation of ideas. What was once reserved for a professional animation team can now be prototyped by a single person in hours. This leads to more experiments, such as interactive narratives or content variants with different protagonists. In this way, storytelling becomes not only more experimental but also more personalizable. YouTube could thus become home to entirely new genres.
YouTube is already home to countless passionate fans and reaches more than 56 million people in Germany alone across all screens.1 How are brands already using generative AI today to reach and engage this huge YouTube audience?
Christopher: Brands are primarily using generative AI to increase efficiency. Instead of a single ad variant, many versions are created within a very short time – with adapted images, texts, or speakers. This enables a previously unattainable level of personalization and A/B testing. In the end, it's about playing out YouTube's enormous reach with technologically optimized, highly relevant content to make campaigns more performant and to reach viewers on a very personal level.
Henry: With generative AI, brands are not only able to produce more content, but also develop better, culturally relevant formats together with their agency partners – formats that are closer to the pulse of the times. In addition to resource-intensive productions, trends can be picked up more quickly with the help of generative AI, creating content that fits seamlessly into the world of creators on YouTube. Brands can thereby grasp the zeitgeist more quickly and easily and become a more active part of it.
What does that mean in practical terms? What tools and platforms are currently available to integrate generative AI into video production on YouTube – especially for brands and agencies?
Henry: Many brands and agencies are already using AI tools across the entire production chain. NotebookLM for research, Gemini for briefing, Whisk for first visuals, and Veo for film prototypes.
Christopher: Multimodal workflows are emerging. A process may start with Gemini, lead to image generation with Imagen 4, and produce a complete video with Veo 3. Existing content is analyzed and rearranged with ViGenAiR. Tools like Flow or Shorts functions accelerate production and scaling. Brands like Taxfix or Telekom show how this already works today. Deutsche Telekom, for example, used generative AI to develop 15 individual video assets for a product launch – tailor-made for different target groups. And Taxfix, as an AI-first company, now uses Veo 3 to produce TV commercials for connected TV.
What distinguishes AI-supported workflows from classic production processes?
Henry: The most important tip is a mental shift. Classic workflows are linear: Each discipline follows the next step. But with generative AI, you are in a constant dialog with the tool. You curate, select, refine. It's about making the best out of many generated options. This requires a clear creative vision, openness to surprises, and a high degree of flexibility, as well as trust between the brand and the agency.
Christopher: In marketing, this creates opportunities for content for which classic production would never have been worthwhile. The key to success, however, lies in conscious process design: Companies should clearly define what quality is "good enough" for which use case. It's not about controlling everything perfectly, but about consciously enabling speed and creative diversity. The cultural change is almost more important here than the choice of tools – because only those who are willing to let go and test will truly exploit the potential of generative workflows.
Where there is potential, there are also challenges. What challenges does AI bring – and how can trust and impact be ensured?
Christopher: People notice when content feels generic or loveless. But that doesn't mean that AI per se represents a quality risk – the creative effort just shifts: away from pure production, towards conceptual precision. And as for trust: The existing requirements for the truthfulness of content naturally continue to apply. But they are supplemented by a new responsibility: Realistic-looking AI-generated content must be clearly contextualized and labeled. YouTube is currently introducing corresponding functions where creators must indicate during upload if content has been synthetically altered or generated. This protects the community without restricting creative freedom.
Henry: Absolutely right. The biggest challenge is not the technology, but creative differentiation. When AI tools lower production hurdles, the idea counts all the more. The decisive question is therefore: What do we stand for as a brand? What message are we pursuing – and how consistently do we implement it? Strategy and briefing become more important than ever. One more addition on the subject of trust: The Veo 3 Challenge at the YouTube Festival is a perfect example. Here, the use of AI is not hidden, but made the core of a creative competition. Brands could submit their ideas and together with the film production company 27km, we used Veo 3 to implement three of the ideas. These, in turn, are voted on by the audience at the YouTube Festival and a winner is chosen. This positive and transparent communication hopefully creates trust and promotes an active engagement with the innovation.
For innovative, experimental creators, YouTube is a platform where they can turn their passion into a profession. How can generative AI help new or aspiring creators in particular to grow faster, scale their production, and stand out from the crowd in a competitive environment?
Henry: Generative AI doesn't replace creativity; it enhances it. For creators, it's like a new tool in the toolbox. It helps make ideas tangible that would previously have failed due to budget or resources. Whether visuals, storyboards, or initial videos: All of this can be implemented faster and more easily with AI today. This leaves more room for what really matters: a strong narrative stance and a deep understanding of one's own community. Those who know clearly what they want to tell can work much more agilely and effectively with AI.
Christopher: At the moment, the focus is clearly on "enablement": AI massively lowers the entry barriers. In the long term, AI will also play a central role in personalization and reach expansion, for example, through automatic, high-quality translations or accessibility features like subtitles and image descriptions. In this way, content is not only produced more efficiently, but also conceived more inclusively and globally.
We've talked a lot about creative production using AI on YouTube. What about AI-supported profitability? According to Nielsen, brands using Google AI on YouTube achieve a 33-percent-higher ROI compared to TV.2 How exactly can generative AI help to increase this impact further?
Henry: One of the main reasons for YouTube's strong ROI performance is the AI-based campaign formats. They enable brands to be visible at the right time, in the right place, with the right message. The "creative" is decisive here – especially in its diversity. The more different assets a campaign has at its disposal – whether in length, format, style, or message – the better the system can learn and personalize. More creative means more impact. And this is exactly where generative AI is a gamechanger: It makes it possible to produce a whole set of variants in the shortest possible time – and thus significantly increase campaign success.
Generative AI improves the investment because it reduces production costs through speed and flexibility.
Christopher: We should look at ROI from two directions: Generative AI improves the investment because it reduces production costs through speed and flexibility. Via rapid prototyping, ideas can be quickly tested and optimized – or discarded. At the same time, the combination of existing assets and generated scenes enables hybrid videos. A brand can, for example, enrich high-quality produced product shots or intro elements with AI-generated scenes – such as via Image-to-Video or Text-to-Video. This saves time, lowers costs, and increases variance without diluting the brand identity. The result: more relevance, faster to market – and thus a significantly higher return. Telekom provides a great example with its "Unlimited" campaign, which consists of Veo-generated assets.
Looking to the future: How will generative AI change YouTube in the next five to ten years? And what role will human creativity, intuition, and pioneering spirit play?
Henry: I believe generative AI will reignite the courage for creativity on YouTube. In the competition for attention, brands will use the new technological possibilities to break out of familiar patterns. Instead of playing it safe, they will become more experimental. For us as viewers, this hopefully means the end of all-too-often easily skippable, formulaic advertising. Instead, we will see more entertaining and surprising brand content that captivates us and leaves a lasting impression. In this new era, human creativity does not recede into the background – it becomes the decisive differentiating feature. The heart of it all remains a good idea.
Christopher: I believe that semi-automated workflows are the future. In this, brands provide a hero asset, from which a multitude of personalized assets tailored to the respective target group are created with the help of AI. Brands that adopt this technology will be in a position to react to current events or trends with relevant video content almost in real time. Imagine a brand being able to create a professional video campaign about a cultural moment within hours. This agility fundamentally changes the way brands communicate on YouTube – they gain speed, relevance, and closeness to the community. A new way of thinking will be decisive here. Brands, creatives, and creators will have to learn to work iteratively and to relinquish control at the right points in order to gain speed. This is how completely new solutions can emerge that were previously unthinkable.
