YouTube is asking users if videos “feel like AI slop” to flag low-quality content

by

YouTube is now asking viewers if the videos they see seem to be low-quality content quickly made with artificial intelligence, as part of a new effort to address AI-generated content.

Artificial intelligence (AI) generated content is a big conversation on YouTube. The platform is open to using AI in certain ways, but it’s also concerned about people relying on it too much.

As a fan of online content, I’ve been really worried about this trend of “AI slop” videos. Basically, people are making entire, super low-quality videos using only AI, and it’s honestly shocking how many views some of these channels are getting – we’re talking billions! It’s a bit concerning to see so much AI-generated content flooding platforms.

Starting in March 2026, the platform introduced a polling feature, allowing users to share their opinions on videos and indicate whether they felt the content was low-quality or created using artificial intelligence.

YouTube targets “AI slop” with new polls

Across X, Reddit and other platforms, users began reporting being asked to analyze videos.

So, I saw vidIQ – they’re usually on top of YouTube news – post some screenshots of a survey YouTube sent out. Apparently, besides asking about all this ‘AI slop’ content, they also wanted to know people’s thoughts on just generally ‘low-quality AI’ stuff. It sounds like YouTube is really trying to figure out how to deal with AI-generated content, both the really bad and just… not great stuff.

I was looking at some screenshots, and YouTube is now showing people a video, its title, and the thumbnail, and then asking if it feels like it was made with AI – they’re literally asking, “Does this feel like AI slop?” It’s pretty wild to see them directly addressing the issue like that!

Since when was this a feature on youtube?? What??
byu/bananars6 inTheDigitalCircus

Participants can then choose one of five answers: not at all, a little, somewhat, a lot, or extremely.

We don’t know how the platform handles videos repeatedly flagged as AI-generated content, or how this impacts its recommendations. However, several ideas about this are already spreading quickly online.

YouTube isn’t actually banning low-quality AI-generated content, often called ‘AI slop’. Instead, they’re requiring creators to label it. This allows YouTube to collect this content and use it to improve their own AI model, Veo 4, so future AI-generated videos look more polished. Essentially, users are helping train YouTube’s next generation of AI by flagging what they consider to be poor quality.

— Tuki (@TukiFromKL) March 17, 2026

TukiFromKL believes YouTube is asking users to identify poor-quality AI-generated videos so YouTube can improve its own AI video creation technology. Essentially, users are flagging bad AI content, YouTube is collecting it, and Google is using that data to train its Veo 4 model. The goal is for Google to eventually create AI-generated videos that are indistinguishable from real ones.

Just recently, Google revealed it’s funding an animation studio to create high-quality, AI-powered videos for children on YouTube. This move is intended to address the growing problem of poorly made AI content online.

Read More

2026-03-18 20:51