One-third of YouTube Shorts feed now consists of AI-generated slop

Approximately one-third of videos appearing in a new YouTube user's Shorts feed consist of brainrot content, while 21% are AI-generated slop, according to research published by Kapwing on November 28, 2024. The analysis examined 500 consecutive videos in a fresh account's feed to quantify the prevalence of low-quality, automatically generated content on the platform.

Among the first 500 YouTube Shorts presented to a new user, 165 videos (33%) qualified as brainrot—compulsive, nonsensical, low-quality video content designed to corrode the viewer's mental or intellectual state. An additional 104 videos (21%) were AI-generated slop, defined as careless, low-quality content generated using automatic computer applications and distributed to farm views and subscriptions or sway political opinion.

The first 16 videos in the test feed contained neither AI slop nor brainrot content. The subsequent 484 videos, however, revealed substantial saturation of machine-generated and low-quality material, raising questions about YouTube's algorithmic curation and content moderation practices.

Whether this prevalence represents deliberate algorithmic engineering or simply reflects the sheer volume of such content being uploaded remains unclear. The Guardian's analysis of YouTube's July 2024 figures revealed that nearly one in ten of the fastest-growing YouTube channels globally showed AI-generated content exclusively.

To establish the global scale of AI slop proliferation, Kapwing examined the top 100 trending YouTube channels across every country, identifying which channels produced AI-generated content and analyzing their reach. The findings reveal a platform increasingly dominated by machine-generated material designed primarily to capture attention rather than provide genuine value.

The research methodology involved manually identifying AI slop channels among trending channels using playboard.co, then using socialblade.com to retrieve view counts, subscriber numbers, and estimated yearly revenue. Data reflects conditions as of October 2025, with figures aggregated by country to assess comparative popularity.

The financial incentives driving this proliferation are substantial. Top AI slop channels generate estimated annual revenues between $4 million and $4.25 million through advertising income alone. These earnings create powerful motivation for content creators to flood YouTube with machine-generated videos, regardless of quality or authenticity concerns.

Brainrot content presents a particular challenge for YouTube as a corporation. The format may lack the soul or professionalism with which advertisers wish to be associated, but brainrot is designed to be addictive. The content's natural environment is the algorithmic feed, where viewers either watch compulsively to numb themselves from external pressures or to stay current with potentially infinite "lore" of emergent brainrot subgenres incorporating recurring characters and themes.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan has characterized generative AI as the biggest game-changer for the platform since the original "revelation" that ordinary people wanted to watch each other's videos. Mohan told Wired that generative AI could do for video what the synthesizer did for music, though the platform simultaneously worries that advertisers will feel devalued by having their advertisements attached to slop content.

"The genius is going to lie whether you did it in a way that was profoundly original or creative," Mohan stated, according to the report. "Just because the content is 75 percent AI generated doesn't make it any better or worse than a video that's 5 percent AI generated. What's important is that it was done by a human being."

Whether creators flooding the platform with auto-generated content to generate revenue care about being recognized as creative geniuses remains uncertain. The evidence suggests financial motivations dominate creative considerations for many AI slop producers.

Spain leads global subscriber counts despite fewer channels

Spain has emerged as the unexpected leader in AI-generated video content consumption, with trending AI slop channels accumulating 20.22 million subscribers despite representing only eight of the country's top 100 trending channels. This surpasses all other nations in subscriber counts, even those with significantly more AI slop channels among their trending content.

Pakistan hosts 20 AI slop channels among its top 100 trending channels—the highest count of any nation. Egypt has 14, South Korea has 11, and the United States has nine. Yet Spain's eight channels have attracted more subscribers than any of these countries, demonstrating particularly strong audience engagement with AI-generated content.

The United States ranks third in AI slop subscribers with 14.47 million, representing 28.4% fewer than Spain but 13.18% more than fourth-placed Brazil's 12.56 million. The concentration of subscribers across relatively few channels suggests certain AI slop producers have achieved breakout success while others struggle for visibility.

Spain's subscriber dominance stems largely from a single channel, Imperio de jesus, which had accumulated 5.87 million subscribers at the time of analysis. The channel promises to strengthen "faith in Jesus through fun interactive quizzes," placing religious figures in various either/or scenarios against characters like Satan and the Grinch. Two additional Spanish channels focused on comedy and brainrot shorts each exceed 3.5 million subscribers.

For advertising professionals, brand safety concerns become particularly acute when religious imagery and themes are exploited for engagement farming. The intersection of faith-based content and AI-generated material raises questions about authenticity that extend beyond typical content moderation challenges.

South Korean channels dominate total viewership with 8.45 billion views

While Spain leads in subscriber counts, South Korea dominates total viewership. The country's 11 trending AI slop channels have amassed 8.45 billion views—nearly 1.6 times Pakistan's 5.34 billion views, 2.5 times the United States' 3.39 billion views, and 3.4 times Spain's 2.52 billion views.

A South Korean channel called Three Minutes Wisdom alone accounts for approximately 2.02 billion views—nearly a quarter of the country's total. Kapwing estimates the channel's annual advertising income at around $4,036,500. The channel's 140 videos typically feature photorealistic footage of wild animals being defeated by cute pets. The URL in the channel's biography appears to function as an affiliate link to Coupang, South Korea's largest online retailer.

This dual revenue stream—advertising income plus affiliate commissions—demonstrates how AI slop producers maximize monetization opportunities. The combination of high viewership and strategic affiliate marketing creates substantial earning potential that encourages continued production of low-quality content.

The South Korean market's particular affinity for this content style suggests cultural factors influence AI slop consumption patterns. Videos featuring animal content with minimal dialogue transcend language barriers, potentially explaining the format's success in international markets beyond South Korea.

United States hosts most-subscribed AI slop channel globally

The trending AI slop channel with the largest global following operates from the United States. Cuentos Facinantes [sic], despite the misspelling in its name, has attracted 5.95 million subscribers—only 1.4% more than Spain's Imperio de jesus but over 50% more than the eighth through tenth most-subscribed slop channels.

The channel has generated approximately 1.28 billion views serving low-quality Dragon Ball-themed videos. While established in 2020, its earliest currently hosted video dates from January 8, 2025, suggesting the channel may have deleted earlier content—possibly to remove evidence of policy violations or to reset algorithmic performance metrics.

Five of the ten trending AI slop channels with the most views are based in South Korea, with others in Egypt, Brazil, and Pakistan. The geographic diversity of leading channels demonstrates that AI slop production and consumption span global markets rather than concentrating in specific regions.

The dominance of Spanish-language content among top U.S.-based channels reflects demographic trends and potentially less saturated markets for AI-generated content in non-English languages. Cuentos Facinantes [sic] targets Spanish-speaking audiences, suggesting producers identify underserved linguistic markets as growth opportunities.

Indian channel achieves highest view count at 2.07 billion

The highest view count belongs to an Indian channel. Bandar Apna Dost has accumulated 2.07 billion views across more than 500 videos, primarily featuring what the channel describes as "a realistic monkey in hilarious, dramatic, and heart-touching human-style situations." Many videos represent variations on identical setups, with minimal differentiation between uploads.

The channel maintains approximately 100,000 Instagram followers, while its Facebook videos are attributed to digital creator Surajit Karmakar. This cross-platform presence amplifies reach while potentially obscuring the automated nature of content production from casual viewers who encounter videos through social media shares.

Kapwing estimates Bandar Apna Dost's annual revenue at $4.25 million based on view counts and average revenue rates per 1,000 views. This represents the highest estimated earnings of any trending AI slop channel globally, demonstrating the substantial financial returns available to successful producers.

The channel's 500+ video library uploaded over a relatively short period suggests automated production pipelines operating at scale. The volume and similarity of content would be difficult for human creators to produce manually, yet YouTube's systems continue to recommend and promote the material to users.

Financial incentives create powerful motivation for continued production

Using an average revenue rate per 1,000 views, the highest-earning AI slop channels generate millions of dollars annually. Bandar Apna Dost leads with estimated annual revenue of $4.25 million, followed by Three Minutes Wisdom at approximately $4,036,500. These figures represent advertising income alone, excluding potential affiliate commissions, sponsorships, or other revenue streams.

The substantial earnings demonstrate why AI slop proliferation continues despite platform concerns and user complaints. For creators in countries where average annual incomes measure in thousands rather than millions of dollars, these revenue figures represent transformative financial opportunities that override quality considerations.

YouTube faces competing pressures regarding AI content moderation. The platform benefits from increased upload volume and viewing time, both of which support advertising revenue growth. However, advertiser concerns about brand safety and content quality create countervailing incentives to limit low-quality material.

The tension between maximizing content volume and maintaining quality standards has characterized digital platforms since their inception. AI slop represents the latest iteration of this challenge, now operating at unprecedented scale and sophistication levels.

Cognitive vulnerabilities and information exhaustion

Part of the threat stems from how AI slop and certain forms of brainrot have been normalized and may appear as harmless entertainment. But slop and brainrot exploit the least critical areas of human cognition. Researchers have demonstrated how the "illusory truth effect" makes people more likely to believe claims or imagery the more frequently they encounter it.

AI tools enable bad-faith actors to construct fabricated enemies or situations supporting underlying political beliefs or goals. Studies show that seeing is believing, even when viewers have been explicitly informed that video content is fake. The combination of realistic AI-generated imagery and repeated exposure creates particularly potent conditions for misinformation spread.

"Information of any kind, in enough quantities, becomes noise," writes researcher and artist Eryk Salvaggio, according to the report. The prevalence of AI slop is "a symptom of information exhaustion, and an increased human dependency on algorithmic filters to sort the world on our behalf."

As this noise drowns out signal on the web, including social networks, the value of trust will rise—as will corporate and political efforts to fabricate and manipulate trust, notes researcher Doug Shapiro in the report. The manipulation of search results and content feeds has already emerged as a significant concern for digital marketers attempting to reach authentic audiences.

For marketing professionals, these developments carry significant implications. The erosion of content quality affects advertising environments across platforms. Brands seeking to maintain authentic connections with audiences must navigate increasingly cluttered digital spaces where algorithmic feeds prioritize engagement over quality.

The proliferation of AI slop also affects organic search performance as platforms struggle to distinguish valuable content from machine-generated material designed solely to capture attention. Publishers and content creators face mounting pressure to demonstrate authenticity as audiences grow skeptical of automated content.

Definitional debates and normalization concerns

The term "AI slop" has been applied variously to unreviewed content, AI-generated media reviewed with minimal quality standards—such as Coca-Cola's recent Christmas advertisements—and all AI-generated content indiscriminately. As researcher Rob Horning notes in the report, the idea that only some AI media constitutes slop propagates the notion that remaining AI content is legitimate and the technology's proliferation is inevitable.

Top film schools now offer courses on the use and ethics of AI in film production. Major brands utilize AI in their creative processes, though results have been mixed. The distinction between legitimate AI assistance in creative work and AI slop produced solely for engagement farming remains contested territory.

Those gaming the novelty of AI's prompt-and-go content use these engines to churn out vast quantities of material, making it difficult for principled and talented creators to achieve visibility. The algorithmic systems that determine content distribution struggle to differentiate between thoughtfully crafted videos incorporating AI tools and mass-produced slop designed purely for monetization.

Google's integration of AI-generated content into search results raises parallel questions about information quality and source verification. The advertising industry must contend with distinguishing genuine engagement from automated interactions as AI-generated content becomes increasingly sophisticated.

Implications for content creators and media literacy

Rather than attending film school to study AI techniques exclusively, it may prove more valuable for creators and consumers alike—especially those still in education—to emphasize Media Studies, according to the report. Understanding how to critically evaluate content, recognize manipulation techniques, and distinguish authentic creation from automated output becomes essential as AI-generated material proliferates.

The research suggests that approximately 21-33% of YouTube's feed may consist of AI slop or brainrot videos for new users. Whether this represents a temporary phenomenon or a permanent shift in digital content creation remains to be seen. The financial success of leading AI slop channels—with top performers earning millions of dollars annually—suggests the practice will continue expanding unless platforms implement stricter quality controls or modify algorithmic recommendations.

For advertisers and marketing professionals, the challenge lies in maintaining brand integrity while reaching audiences increasingly exposed to low-quality, machine-generated content. The verification of ad placement and transparent reporting mechanisms become critical as the digital advertising ecosystem grapples with content quality concerns.

The Kapwing analysis provides quantitative evidence of a phenomenon many users have experienced anecdotally: algorithmic feeds increasingly dominated by content optimized for engagement metrics rather than genuine value. The 33% brainrot rate and 21% AI slop rate documented in new user feeds suggest substantial portions of platform content now exist primarily to exploit attention rather than inform, entertain, or educate meaningfully.

Whether YouTube and similar platforms will prioritize short-term revenue maximization through increased content volume or long-term sustainability through quality standards remains an open question. The current trajectory suggests algorithmic systems continue amplifying AI slop despite platform concerns, creator frustrations, and advertiser skepticism.

Timeline

• January 8, 2025: Earliest currently hosted video on Cuentos Facinantes [sic] channel appears, despite 2020 establishment date
• July 2024: The Guardian analysis reveals nearly one in ten fastest-growing YouTube channels globally show AI-generated content exclusively
• October 2025: Kapwing data collection period for AI slop analysis showing 21% AI-generated and 33% brainrot content in new user feeds
• November 28, 2024: Kapwing publishes comprehensive report documenting AI slop proliferation across global YouTube channels
• Google confirms brand safety concerns around AI-generated content
• YouTube implements third-party verification for brand safety
• Invalid traffic detection becomes critical for advertisers
• Google updates spam policies affecting search quality
• Meta expands verification requirements for advertisers
• YouTube introduces campaign-level brand safety controls

Summary

Who: Kapwing, a video editing platform, conducted research examining AI-generated content proliferation across YouTube. The analysis identified leading AI slop producers including Spanish channel Imperio de jesus (5.87 million subscribers), U.S.-based Cuentos Facinantes [sic] (5.95 million subscribers), South Korean channel Three Minutes Wisdom (2.02 billion views, estimated $4,036,500 annual revenue), and Indian channel Bandar Apna Dost (2.07 billion views, estimated $4.25 million annual revenue). YouTube CEO Neal Mohan characterized generative AI as transformative for the platform, while researchers including Eryk Salvaggio and Doug Shapiro warned about information exhaustion and trust manipulation.

What: The research quantified AI slop prevalence by examining 500 consecutive videos in a new YouTube Shorts feed, revealing 33% were brainrot content and 21% were AI-generated slop. Analysis of top 100 trending channels across every country showed Spain leading in total AI slop subscribers (20.22 million across eight channels), while South Korea dominated viewership (8.45 billion views across 11 channels). Top AI slop channels generate estimated annual revenues between $4 million and $4.25 million through advertising income, creating powerful financial incentives for continued low-quality content production. The first 16 videos in the test feed contained no AI slop or brainrot, but subsequent videos showed substantial saturation.

When: Kapwing collected data in October 2025 and published findings on November 28, 2024. The Guardian's related analysis examined July 2024 YouTube data. The earliest currently hosted video on leading channel Cuentos Facinantes [sic] dates from January 8, 2025, despite the channel's 2020 establishment, suggesting content deletion. The research documents current conditions rather than historical trends, though the rapid growth of AI slop channels suggests recent acceleration.

Where: The phenomenon spans globally, with new YouTube users experiencing 21-33% AI slop and brainrot content regardless of location. Spain leads in subscriber counts (20.22 million across eight trending channels), South Korea dominates viewership (8.45 billion views across 11 channels), the United States ranks third in subscribers (14.47 million across nine channels), and Pakistan hosts the most AI slop channels among its top 100 (20 channels). India, Egypt, and Brazil represent other major markets for AI slop consumption and production.

Why: Financial incentives drive AI slop proliferation, with top channels earning millions annually through advertising revenue and affiliate marketing. The content exploits algorithmic recommendation systems designed to maximize engagement, human cognitive vulnerabilities including the illusory truth effect that makes repeated exposure increase belief in false claims, and viewers' compulsive consumption patterns. YouTube's competing pressures—benefiting from increased content volume while facing advertiser concerns about quality—create conditions allowing AI slop to flourish. Researchers warn that information overload from AI slop creates dependence on algorithmic filters while enabling manipulation of trust, raising critical concerns for advertisers seeking authentic audience engagement in increasingly cluttered digital environments where 33% of new user feed content consists of brainrot designed to corrode mental and intellectual states.