YouTube at 20: A New Era of AI, Authenticity and Creator-Led Culture

You Tube CEO, Neal Mohan and leading creators unveil how AI tools and authentic voices are reshaping storytelling on YouTube

At the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, YouTube celebrated its 20th anniversary not with nostalgia but with a future-facing agenda. Taking centre stage at the Lumière Theatre, was YouTube CEO Neal Mohan who was joined by content creators Amelia Dimoldenberg, Alexandra Cooper and Brandon Baum in a lively discussion that outlined how the platform plans to redefine entertainment, storytelling and audience engagement in its third decade.

In a conversation that underscored both scale and intimacy, Mohan revealed staggering platform metrics: one billion hours of daily watch time on TV devices and more than 200 billion daily views on YouTube Shorts. Yet the real takeaway was not numbers it was narrative. YouTube is no longer merely a video hosting site. It’s a creative ecosystem, a cultural bellwether, and a growing force in the advertising and media value chain.

Creators as the New Studios

Creators were at the heart of this session both on stage and in strategy. Amelia Dimoldenberg, best k…