On May 27, YouTube announced that it would start automatically labeling videos containing “a significant amount of realistic AI-generated content,” rather than relying solely on creators to self-report such material. Starting May 2026, YouTube’s internal detection systems will automatically apply labels whenever they identify notable AI-generated or AI-modified content. Creators who believe a label was applied incorrectly can update their declaration status via YouTube Studio; however, for content produced using YouTube’s own AI tools—such as Veo and Dream Screen—as well as fully AI-generated videos carrying C2PA metadata, the labels will remain permanently and cannot be removed.
Meanwhile, YouTube has also adjusted where these labels appear: on longer videos, they now appear beneath the player and above the title, instead of in the expanded description section; on YouTube Shorts, they are overlaid directly onto the video footage. YouTube emphasizes that these AI labels have no impact on video recommendations or creators’ eligibility for monetization. This update follows Google’s announcement at I/O of Gemini Omni, a multimodal model capable of generating high-quality videos reflecting physical, cultural, and scientific realities—making it increasingly difficult to distinguish AI-made content from authentic material.