A study indicates that TikTok's feeds display three times as much AI-generated content compared to YouTube.

      Content for kids has the highest rate of AI-generated material on TikTok.

      If you've ever sensed that your TikTok feed is primarily filled with artificial content, you're not mistaken. A recent report from Kapwing revealed that 59% of videos shown to a newly created TikTok account consist of AI-generated content. This is about three times the rate that Kapwing found when conducting a similar test on YouTube.

      How does TikTok’s AI-generated content issue compare to YouTube?

      Kapwing established new accounts on both platforms and manually reviewed the first 500 videos on each. For TikTok, 294 out of those 500 videos were identified as AI-generated, while YouTube had only 104 out of the first 500 Shorts classified as such, resulting in a 21% rate for that platform.

      The sheer scale of the issue is astounding, especially considering TikTok had already marked 1.3 billion videos as AI-generated by November. To better understand where AI-generated content is prevalent, Kapwing also scrutinized over 10,000 TikTok videos across 20 different content categories.

      Which categories on TikTok are overrun with AI-generated content?

      Kids' content led all categories, with 57% of the 2,000 videos found to be AI-generated. The category with the highest incidence was #cartoonkids, where 97 out of 100 showcased videos were artificial.

      Following closely were the categories of Science and Education, Health, and History, each having AI-generated content rates of between 33% and 35%. These categories often use animation and voiceover narration in place of real demonstrations.

      Conversely, categories like Fashion, Music, and Fitness saw very little AI content, with rates below 2%, likely because those formats heavily depend on authentic, on-camera appearances.

      Although TikTok has introduced tools for users to reduce AI content in their feeds, this study indicates that the default content still skews significantly toward AI. Currently, the responsibility for filtering out low-quality content largely rests on the viewer.

      Manisha Priyadarshini is a tech and entertainment writer with over nine years of editorial experience.

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