YouTube is deploying artificial intelligence to give its vast archive of standard-definition videos a high-definition facelift – part of the platform’s strategic pivot to the living room.
In a blog post last week, YouTube Senior Director of Product Management Kurt Wilms announced a suite of five new features, touting these as a move to “make any YouTube content a premier experience on TV.” Part of that is an AI-powered tool that will automatically upscale videos uploaded in lower resolutions. The feature, which Bloomberg confirmed will also apply to web and mobile, will first target content below 1080p, enhancing it to HD with a future goal of 4K.
This seems to be a strategic asset management play. The AI would refresh and future-proof millions of hours of content that would otherwise look increasingly dated on modern 4K televisions, unlocking new monetization potential to creators and to the platform itself. This is critical as YouTube reports a 45% year-over-year increase in channels earning over six figures from TV screen revenue.
“The living room is increasingly the new prime time for creators,” Wilms wrote, framing the update as part of their mission to “make creator content shine.” The economics of YouTube are increasingly shifting away from the phone and onto the television, where higher production quality is rewarded. YouTube claimed 12.5% of all U.S. television viewing in May 2025, the highest share of TV for any streamer on record, according to data from June 2025 data from Nielsen. It was the first streaming platform on Nielsen records to exceed more than a 10% share of daily viewership last year.
The new upscaling feature arrives with some measures. Creators can opt-out, and the original video file is preserved. The enhanced version will be clearly labeled, allowing viewers to choose. This transparency will be key as AI upscaling can sometimes introduce artifacts, and the quality of the final result will be the litmus test for the underlying technology.
Beyond AI, the update hints at a refinement in YouTube’s TV operating system. The platform is expanding thumbnail file sizes to 50MB to enable 4K preview images and testing larger video uploads, nodding to the TV interface being an extremely visually competitive space. New “contextual search” will retain viewers on a channel’s page, a challenge to the endless, platform-wide scroll and a possible boon for channel loyalty.
Perhaps the most telling addition is the lean into social commerce: With viewers watching 35 billion hours of shopping-related content annually, YouTube is introducing QR codes for instant purchasing and testing timed product placements within videos. This turns the passive, lean-back experience of TV watching into an active, transactional one, potentially closing the gap between inspiration and purchase from the consumer couch.
With this, YouTube is no longer positioning itself as a video platform adapted for TV, but almost as a native TV service built on a creator-first model. The success of this AI gamble will decide whether the platform’s past can truly be as valuable as its future.
