As tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo make AI video creation more accessible than ever, “AI slop” is also invading YouTube, according to a report by video-editing firm Kapwing.
The company created a new YouTube account and tracked the number of AI-generated videos it saw on YouTube Shorts. Of the 500 videos it scrolled through, 104 (or 21%) were AI-generated, and 165 (33%) of those 500 videos were what Kapwing considers to be brainrot, or “nonsensical, low-quality video content that creates the effect of corroding the viewer’s mental or intellectual state while watching.”
Kapwing also identified the top 100 trending YouTube channels in specific countries and picked out the slop channels.
South Korea, which has some of the highest rates of social media and smartphone use globally, is leading the way in terms of slop consumption; the top channels have been viewed roughly 8.25 billion times. Three Minutes Wisdom, which features photorealistic-style footage of wild animals being defeated by cute household pets, has racked up 2.02 billion views on its own.
Pakistan came in second place in the rankings, with its top slop channels racking up 5.34 billion views. The United States ranked third, with the top channels collecting 3.39 billion views. The top channel in the US is the Spanish-language Cuentos Facientes, with 1.28 billion views and an estimated $2.66 million in earnings for its creators. It appears to be offline now, however.
YouTube isn’t the only part of the web being overrun by AI-generated content lately. As of May 2025, the percentage of AI articles on the web is slightly above 50%.
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Meanwhile, four in 10 employees in the US have received “workslop” material over the past year, consisting of AI-generated work content that “masquerades as good work but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task,” with sectors like IT and consulting being hardest hit.
Some YouTube competitors, such as TikTok, have taken steps to curb the influx of AI-generated content on their platforms. TikTok rolled out features last month to help users better identify AI-generated content, enabling them to keep AI content out of their feeds.
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