NEW YORK :On its 20th birthday, YouTube is unrecognizable as the scrappy video site that began as the domain of young amateur users publishing unpolished, low-budget clips.

Commanding 2.7 billion users, including celebrities like British pop star Dua Lipa who share professional-grade content, YouTube has become the most popular way for Americans to watch TV and is expected to eclipse industry leader Disney's media revenue this year.

On Tuesday at the company's annual Made on YouTube product launch event, executives at the platform - owned by Alphabet's Google - laid out a vision of how YouTube planned to dominate the airwaves in the coming decades: with AI.

YouTube spent much of the event championing its video creators as the future of media who could now work without constraints placed by media executives. They would be helped, instead, by a host of artificial intelligence-enabled tools that would either reimagine the production process or create new content entirely - a concept that Hollywood fought against during a months-long strike in 2023.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and other presenters dismissed the idea, reiterating that the rapid expansion of AI capabilities would not replace the jobs of content creators.

"These are tools, and really just that," Mohan said. "Make no mistake: no studio, network, tech company, or AI tool will own the future of entertainment."

Rather, Mohan said, making videos on YouTube should be seen as a "viable, respectable and sustainable career path" as AI increasingly comes to the fore of the creation process over YouTube's next 20 years.

Backed by Google's deep pockets and market-leading AI know-how, YouTube has stretched its lead over Disney, which dominated the market for most of 2024, according to Nielsen data. YouTube captured 13.4 per cent of U.S. viewership in July, versus 9.4 per cent for Disney.

Analysts at MoffettNathanson recently predicted that YouTube's revenue this year would surpass Disney's as well. That storied entertainment company made nearly $60 billion in media revenue last year, they estimated.

Alphabet does not regularly report YouTube's revenue, but it disclosed that combined YouTube ad and subscription revenue surpassed $50 billion in the four quarters ending September 2024.

AI BOOSTS ROLL-OUT OF NEW TOOLS

YouTube on Tuesday showcased new products by tapping personalities who have enjoyed success on its platform including Dua Lipa, Mark Rober, Smosh and Brandon B.

For some, these content creators - each of whom runs channels with at least 16 million subscribers - have taken the place of late-night TV show hosts whose viewership has slumped. In some cases, these creators have subscribers that rival followers of Hollywood stars on social media, underscoring their appeal to a new generation of media consumers.

On stage, Lipa credited YouTube for helping her connect more intimately with her fans. Asked by Reuters in an email how Lipa intended to use the AI features and if she had concerns, a spokesperson did not immediately respond with a comment.

Mohan said YouTube had paid out more than $100 billion to content makers over the past four years. Some video makers have reinvested some of their earnings into building production facilities in the style of Hollywood studio lots as they make increasingly elaborate and professional videos.

The company tripled the number of new features it introduced this year compared to last year's event.

Most of the more than 30 new tools that it revealed incorporated AI to either revamp the production process or create new content. The tools have features to automatically embed relevant shopping links into videos or to almost instantaneously edit a bunch of clips into the first cut of a video. YouTube also unveiled AI-generated videos to accompany audio-only podcasts and a speech-to-song generator.

Amjad Hanif, a vice president at YouTube who manages creator-oriented products, told Reuters in an interview that the pace of rapid product development could partly be attributed to YouTube staffers themselves using AI to ideate more rapidly.

YouTube, new leader of US media industry, bets on AI as key for creating content