YouTube Plans to Clone Its Creators

YouTube has announced plans to launch a feature in 2026 that will allow users to create AI-generated versions of themselves to star in videos, directly competing with a similar “cameo” tool from OpenAI’s Sora app.

In his annual letter, CEO Neal Mohan positioned AI as the next transformative creative tool, akin to the synthesizer or Photoshop, and revealed that over one million channels were already using YouTube’s existing AI tools daily in December.

While dramatically expanding these capabilities—including potential tools to generate simple games from text prompts—Mohan emphasized that AI is intended as “a tool for expression, not a replacement” for human creators, addressing widespread industry fears.

To maintain trust, YouTube will require creators to label altered or synthetic content and will provide tools to combat the unauthorized use of someone’s likeness in AI videos, as well as adapt anti-spam measures to fight low-quality “AI slop.”