YouTube has begun employing AI to make ads increasingly hard to skip.

      Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends

      YouTube is now leveraging AI in its latest efforts against users seeking an ad-free viewing experience. The platform recently announced its intention to utilize AI models to enhance the effectiveness of ads by carefully positioning them within videos.

      During its Brandcast 2025 event in New York, YouTube shared plans to employ Google’s Gemini AI to analyze videos for optimal ad placement. This AI will pinpoint significant moments, referred to as “Peak Points,” in videos where viewers are most engaged and less likely to pause to avoid ads.

      The AI is said to surpass the current histogram feature on the YouTube scrub bar that highlights “Most replayed” segments in a video. However, the criteria YouTube will use to identify these peak moments are not clearly defined.

      YouTube does not specify other details regarding the ads, such as their length or whether they can be skipped. However, it is reasonable to assume that YouTube is unlikely to insert shorter or easily skippable ads, as such features would undermine the goal of placing ads during the most intense video moments.

      While this may be unpleasant for viewers, it could benefit content creators, potentially leading to increased ad revenue. Whether this will also lead to improved click-through rates (CTR) for advertisers will likely depend on how relevant the ads are to viewers.

      All these strategies ultimately aim to encourage viewers to subscribe to YouTube Premium, and the company has been testing various approaches to persuade users to make the switch, including offering limited ad-free previews and plans with reduced ads. Additionally, YouTube continues its efforts to make ad blockers less effective, particularly for those using Chrome as their main browser.

      In conjunction with these strategic ad initiatives, YouTube announced that it will live-stream the NFL Week One game from Brazil on September 5th, available to all viewers without a subscription.

      Tushar is a freelance writer at Digital Trends and has been contributing to the Mobile Section for the past three years.

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      Google mentions that more than two dozen improvements are on the horizon. Here’s a brief overview of the most significant upcoming features:

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