A growing influx of low-quality, AI-generated videos aimed at children is heightening concerns for YouTube, as creators increasingly rely only automated tools to churn out toddler-facing content at scale.

This wave of “AI slop”—a label for cheaply made, repetitive, and largely unoriginal digital material, is spreading quickly across channels targeting very young audiences, according to Bloomberg report.

The content ranges from fully synthetic videos to real footage paired with AI-generated voiceovers.

Despite YouTube Kids being designed for users aged 2 to 12, large numbers of infants and toddlers are still accessing the platform.

A Pew Research Center study shows that more than 60 per cent of parents with children under two say their babies watch YouTube.

The scale of AI-generated content on YouTube Kids remains uncertain, but creators are quickly moving to exploit the gap.

The report stated that several channels with more than one million subscribers are now posting tutorials that teach others how to produce low-effort AI videos that end up in front of young viewers.

Developmental psychologist, Michael Robb, cautioned that AI gives creators “an unbelievable mechanism to generate a high quantity of low-quality videos that are purporting to be educational or good for kids.”

YouTube has introduced measures to limit such content, yet many AI-generated videos still slip through since they do not directly violate existing platform rules.