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YouTube has officially held its title as the top-streamed platform in the U.S. for three consecutive years, according to Nielsen1. That’s ahead of Netflix, Disney, and Prime Video.
On the surface, that’s clear confirmation that YouTube is the top platform in the living room, but the real story goes much deeper.
In his 2026 letter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan shared a roadmap that shows the reasons behind why YouTube has become the platform of choice for viewers and how creators, commerce, and AI are creating new marketing opportunities in the living room and beyond.
1. Reinventing entertainment: Creators are the new stars & studios
Creators are building more than just content. They’re building their own studios, earning Emmy nominations, and producing work with a scope and ambition once reserved for Hollywood studios. On YouTube, creators have the freedom to build content intentionally for their audiences, shaping it around what people actually want to watch and how they want to watch it.
Increasingly, that viewing is happening on the biggest screen in the house. Viewers watch an average of over 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs each day,2 and TV is now the main screen for watching YouTube in the U.S.3
YouTube viewers want choice, and they want their favorite creators.
Becoming part of the biggest moments and conversations in culture
Viewers now turn on their TVs expecting more than “what’s on.” They want choice: entertainment, sports, music, the most popular podcasts, how-to content, and their favorite creators. In fact, 63% of viewers and 83% of Gen Z in the United States say that they prefer watching content from their favorite creators over studio-produced shows or movies.4
YouTube creators are producing shows that fans don’t just watch, they anticipate.
With cultural moments like Coachella, awards shows, and exclusive sports partnerships, YouTube brings audiences together around both the biggest moments and the conversations about them. And increasingly, creators are making moments of their own. YouTube creators are producing shows that fans don’t just watch, they anticipate. By joining these moments and conversations, brands can build lasting connections with audiences when they’re watching what they love most.
2. Powering the creator economy
Over the past four years alone, YouTube has paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies. That investment has made it possible for creators to show up authentically and consistently for their audiences. This freedom has reshaped the role creators play on YouTube.
YouTube creators are both entertainers and trusted guides who shape how audiences discover options, evaluate choices, and ultimately make decisions. With more than 500,000 creators now participating in YouTube Shopping, their audiences are increasingly coming to them to figure out what to buy, and then actually buy from them, too. That trust and expertise is how creator Vineet Malhotra drove more than $40 million in YouTube Shopping gross merchandise volume in 2025 alone.
Creators like Vineet Malhotra guide viewers in their shopping decisions.
Bridging entertainment and commerce for brands
Malhotra’s success shows how YouTube creators have become a bridge between entertainment and commerce. It seems natural, when you consider that 81% of viewers in the United States agree that YouTube has creator content that helps them research and discover products when shopping.5
YouTube is changing what living room viewing means for marketers.
We see that kind of more confident, intentional decision-making reflected in the over 1 billion conversions in the past 12 months from TV screens that YouTube drove.6 By unlocking the ability to drive objectives far beyond awareness, YouTube is changing what living room viewing means for marketers. Partnering with YouTube creators is a chance for brands to bridge the worlds of entertainment and commerce.
3. Supercharging & safeguarding creativity
AI is at the core of how audiences discover and experience their favorite content on YouTube. This past December alone, more than 20 million users expanded their understanding of the content they watched and went deeper on the topics they care about through the AI-powered Ask tool.7
AI is also helping creators expand their ideas across formats, contexts, and audiences. Last December, more than 1 million channels used YouTube’s AI creation tools each day,8 while features like AI-powered auto-dubbing are breaking down the language barrier between creators and new audiences.
AI-powered impact comes to the living room
On YouTube, AI is unlocking new opportunities for marketers as well. For decades, marketing followed a rigid, linear processes for planning, buying, and creative. The result was often a strategy that aimed to get a few pieces of creative in front of as many people as possible, as often as possible. With AI, marketers are able to embrace a more dynamic planning process that can win attention as consumers move seamlessly between formats, screens, and contexts.
As audience attention becomes more fluid across screens, creative strategy must follow. Success isn’t just about scaling creative volume; it’s about using AI to meet changing user needs. AI-powered tools like Google’s Asset Studio solve this by extending a single idea across different formats and contexts while keeping the brand signal intact.
Rather than replacing creativity for marketers, AI amplifies it. As Mohan explains, “Just as the synthesizer, Photoshop, and CGI revolutionized sound and visuals, AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in.”
Across entertainment, commerce, and creativity, these opportunities add up to a new formula for growth for brands. With creators and their communities leading the way, we’re excited to see how this new era of viewing in the living room and beyond takes shape on YouTube.
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