"YouTube continues to vacuum up digital advertising dollars, mostly at the expense of traditional TV ad budgets, notching its biggest-ever ad sales number to date for the fourth quarter of 2025. However, the video giant's ad haul came in below Wall Street forecasts. In the last three months of the year, YouTube's global ad revenue totaled $11.38 billion, a year-over-year increase of 8.7%, parent company Alphabet reported. Wall Street analysts on average forecast YouTube ad revenue coming in at $11.84 billion, per StreetAccount."
"YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, in his 2026 letter to the community outlining the platform's priorities for the year, touted new AI tools coming for creators and said more than 1 million channels used YouTube's AI tools daily in December 2025. At the same time, the rise of artificial intelligence has raised concerns about "AI slop," he said, and YouTube is working on "reducing the spread of low-quality, repetitive content." YouTube Shorts, the platform's short-form video format, now averages 200 billion daily views, according to Mohan."
YouTube's global ad revenue reached $11.38 billion in Q4 2025, an 8.7% increase year-over-year, but below the StreetAccount consensus of $11.84 billion. Alphabet reported overall Q4 revenue of $113.8 billion, up 18%, and net income of $34.5 billion, up 30%, with EPS of $2.82, beating estimates. YouTube's reported ad figures exclude subscription revenue from YouTube TV, Premium and Music. Strategic moves included acquiring exclusive global Oscars rights for 2029–2033 and a BBC partnership to produce original channels for children and young adults. YouTube highlighted more than 1 million channels using AI tools daily, efforts to curb low-quality "AI slop," and Shorts averaging 200 billion daily views.
Read at Variety
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]