Will an AI generated YouTube video reach 500M views before 2026?

At least 90% of the frames and audio in the video must be generated by an AI, but an editing process involving a human is permissible within the context of this question. The video must be at least 45 seconds long (YouTube shorts are acceptable provided they fulfil this criteria).

Intros and outros are not considered as "part of the video" unless these are also AI-generated. If a video has 5 seconds of intros and outros, then the video must be at least 50 seconds long in order to include 45 seconds of AI-generated content.

In order for the video to fulfil the criteria of "AI generated", a neural network (or some similar class of model) must be significantly involved in the production of each frame counted in the 45 seconds of AI-generated content in the video.

The "main subject" of the video must be AI generated in order to qualify. For example, a music video with a real singer superimposed on an AI generated background would not qualify. However, an AI generated singer in a virtual scene on which real backup dancers have been superimposed would qualify.

For a frame to be considered AI generated, then the majority of the pixels must have been produced by a process that involved a neural network (or similar architecture) to a substantial degree.

Silent videos are acceptable, as are videos with a still image, provided this image is AI generated. If the video is not silent then the audio must be broadly generated by an AI. If a video has an audio track that contains both AI generated (synthetic) and recorded audio (e.g a real human's voice), then this media qualifies only if the AI generated audio content is the main "subject" of the audio track. For example, a real human voice singing over synthetic AI-generated background music would not qualify, except in the case that the voice was only heard in a few seconds of the soundtrack.

Background music or sound effects that are not AI-generated are permissible provided that 90% of the video contains AI-generated audio on top (e.g. AI-generated voices), and that the AI-generated audio is the "main subject" of the audio track (cannot be simply AI-generated sound effects on top of a music track created by a human).

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There's a whole universe of weird AI generated content on youtube targeted at like toddlers and stuff. I dunno how their individual views stack up, but it's huge business already.

@AndrewHartman I imagine there's probably a few that are just midjourney images with a voiceover. These would count in the context of this question provided the voiceover was AI generated.

@AndrewHartman but with 500 million views? Doubt any of them have come close so far

@RemNi For base rates purposes I'd expect this to be pretty small regardless. How many youtube videos have 500M+ views total? Offhandedly I'd guess it's roughly the middle of the 1000-100,000 bracket on a logarithmic scale? I don't watch enough actually popular stuff on youtube to have a very good idea though.

@AndrewHartman Okay, after a bit of searching it looks more like it's maybe a thousand tops? So the base rate for this happening is extremely small for any given video. I guess the premise is that AI can make it up in volume? I dunno, I still kinda expect this to be pretty tiny overall.

@AndrewHartman you mean that channel owners are using automated tools to pump out lots of low quality videos that are unlikely to attract many views? That would be my guess as well for what the current trend is.

@AndrewHartman I think at some point this will change and someone will start producing really high quality content with AI, but haven't seen anything like this yet

@AndrewHartman I'd expect the first AI generated video to cross the 500M threshold to be a music video.

@AndrewHartman Fully Automated Baby Shark ?

@RemNi Given that nearly all the billion club are music videos this seems like a very safe assumption.

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