YouTube will stop paying creators for AI slop, fake personas, and distressing videos
Three new content categories now block creators from earning ad money on YouTube. Here is what changed, and what it means for anyone who watches or makes videos.
Key points
- YouTube updated its monetisation rules on 16 July 2025, adding three specific content types that cannot earn ad revenue.
- The rules cover generic or repetitive AI-made videos, emotionally manipulative content, and AI personas discussing health or finance.
- YouTube's Partner Programme, which pays creators through ads and subscriptions, now excludes channels that produce too much of any of these three types.
- YouTube's trust and safety chief Matt Halprin said the goal is to stop "content farming," where creators flood channels with quick, low-effort videos purely to collect ad money.
YouTube has quietly sharpened the rules deciding which creators get paid, and the update lands squarely on AI-generated content.
On 16 July, the platform updated its YouTube Partner Programme guidelines. The Partner Programme is the scheme that lets creators earn money from the adverts you see before and during videos. The changes, first reported by TechCrunch AI, add detail to a policy YouTube introduced last year that already banned what it called "inauthentic content."
This time, YouTube is spelling out exactly what that means.
What counts as unpayable content now?
YouTube now blocks monetisation for three specific categories.
The first is generic, repetitive, or template-based videos. Think of a channel that pumps out hundreds of nearly identical clips, perhaps using AI image tools or stock animation, with no original story or point of view. Tutorial videos can also fall here if they just copy content that already floods the platform.
The second is "off-putting" or emotionally manipulative content. Halprin gave a pointed example: a video showing an animal in distress, set up purely so a rescuer can swoop in and collect clicks. YouTube says its own viewers complained about this type of content and said it put them off returning.
The third targets AI personas discussing sensitive topics. An AI persona is a digital character, built with artificial intelligence tools, that looks or sounds like a real person but is not. YouTube does not want those characters giving advice on health, medicine, legal matters, or personal finance, areas where bad information causes real harm.
Any channel that leans heavily on any of the three categories loses access to ad and subscription earnings.
Halprin was careful to say AI itself is not the enemy. "AI can actually allow people to make a lot of videos," he said in a Creator Insider video last week. "Sometimes those videos are great, and it really enhances creativity." The problem is when the same tools produce floods of near-identical clips with no craft behind them.
YouTube's financial motive here is straightforward. The platform now earns more in advertising than rival streaming services and has overtaken Netflix in average daily viewing worldwide. Filling the site with cheap filler would push advertisers away.
What this means for viewers: The changes should, over time, reduce the volume of repetitive or upsetting videos that surface in recommendations. It will not happen overnight, and enforcement always lags policy.
What this means for creators: If you use AI tools to make videos, the question YouTube will now ask is whether your content adds something original. If it does, the rules are not aimed at you.
