Neel Mohan, an Indian-American, took over as head of YouTube in February 2023 after Susan Wojcicki, one of Google's founding employees, decided to step down from her role.
Mohan, a Stanford University graduate, joined YouTube's parent company Google in 2008 and served as the company's chief product officer before becoming CEO.
Speaking to Bloomberg about his vision for the video streaming platform's future, the outlook for artificial intelligence and the creator economy, Mohan was optimistic that it's “still early days” for YouTube.
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“We want to be the best place for people to create, share and watch any video they can imagine, no matter where they are in the world, on any device. That's our vision, that's my vision. That's the vision for YouTube,” Mohan said.
Regarding business expansion…
When asked about YouTube's expansion, Mohan said he sees it as “unique” and that the company is “still in the early stages of its growth story.”
“YouTube is truly unique. We're not a social media platform. We're not a traditional media. We're not a traditional TV station. We're truly unique. So, if we go with that vision, I think we're still in the early stages of our growth story and delivering on our mission of giving everyone a voice and telling the world,” Mohan believes.
He also acknowledged that YouTube has overtaken Netflix to become the world's largest video streaming service, adding that it is “starting to be recognised as a platform on television screens as well.”
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“We just surpassed 1 billion hours of viewing on living room screens. When we talk to our advertising partners, Nielsen's measurement certainly matters. Brands that are looking to connect with consumers on our platform are recognizing that and they see this platform not only as a place with broad reach, but also as a place to engage with consumers,” he added.
“Our top creators have increased their viewing time on living room screens by something like 400% over the last couple of years or so. So we're seeing phenomenal growth. And it really comes down to the fact that people want to go home, sit on the couch, turn on YouTube and consume all the content they know and love there,” Mohan added.
YouTube's revenues have reached $15 billion annually and are expected to continue to grow.
Mohan broke this down into the creator economy, advertising subscription businesses and direct fan funding through channel memberships, saying, “There's so much scale and complexity in the ecosystem that we need to rethink how we support the creator ecosystem.”
“The goal remains the same – to enable creators to succeed on the platform on both fronts: building an audience and being able to make a sustainable living from the platform,” Mohan said.
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“What we're building for all of us, the users of the platform, is the connection between fans and viewers and creators, and that's what ultimately appeals to advertisers. So if we're not focused on the creator-to-fan connection, then everything we're doing doesn't make sense from an advertiser standpoint,” Mohan added.
He also said that monetization on YouTube is a “long-term effort.”
On business models and the creator economy…
Mohan noted that YouTube's Partner Program (YPP) has 3 million craters under its belt, proving that “millions of creators” are making a living on the platform.
Of the $70 billion paid out to creators over the years, Mohan said the majority of it has been generated through advertising: “Advertising (video-based demand, or AVOD) is our primary business. But our subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) businesses, which are YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, are increasingly becoming a significant part of our business, and of course we have our YouTube TV subscription business.”
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He added that fan funding is another revenue stream for creators: “AVOD, SVOD and direct-to-consumer fan funding will bring revenue to creators, and time will tell if it pays off. In other words, if their business succeeds, our business succeeds. So we're very happy with the size of the creator economy, but I remind my team every day that we're still in the very early stages of how this will grow and what it will become,” he added.
About recommendations, short videos, and AI…
About YT Changes to recommendation algorithms, Mohan clarified that this is a “reflection of your interests as a viewer.” “So the fact that it changes is a reflection of your interests or your personal history of what you're watching on our platform. And that's the simplest way I can explain it,” he said.
“AI is the buzzword in the industry,” Mohan said, adding that the company aims to improve viewer experience through innovation. “Recommendations is one area where we have been investing heavily in AI for about 10 years now,” he said.
upon ShortsMohan was optimistic, but added that it's still “very early days” for this growth area: “We've seen a 50% increase in the number of creators uploading shorts compared to last year. In the year since we launched our shorts monetization program, we've seen an increase in creator revenue every month. Shorts have been a huge success, but it's still 'very early days,'” he added.
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Mohan tried to direct questions to Microsoft about speculation that Microsoft-backed OpenAI was using YouTube videos to train its Sora model, but the company acknowledged that such use violates YouTube's terms of service (TOS).
“I don't know if OpenAI used YouTube videos to train Sora. I don't have that information myself, so I would encourage you to ask them directly,” he said. When pressed about the policy, Mohan said YouTube has “clear terms of service and does not allow the downloading of transcripts or videos. This is a clear violation of their terms of service.”
Regarding Google's internal use of the resource, Mohan said, “They have terms of service and individual contracts with creators, and many creators have different types of license agreements for their content on our platform, and it may be used in those models pursuant to the agreements that creators sign before uploading their content to YouTube.”
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On AI and the age of misinformation…
Mohan believes that “technology is here; there is no running away from it,” adding that this paradigm shift will lead to a lot of great opportunities.
But in the hands of bad actors, it could fuel deepfakes and misinformation, he added. “So we have to be aware of that. AI is going to play a really big role in actually detecting that kind of content, but also the incredibly trained experts around the world who are reviewing this content are going to play a key role,” he added.
On AI and deepfakes in an election year, Mohan said YouTube has introduced a new policy that requires it to label this type of content (AI-generated). “We're not stopping there. When people are looking for election-related information on our platform, we'll feature content from authoritative channels as determined by third-party raters who evaluate the content of these channels. We have an intelligence division that monitors for coordinated deceptive activities,” Mohan said.
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