YouTube Thinks AI Is Its Next Big Bang

On its 20th anniversary, YouTube is venturing into an era of AI-generated video, and may never be the same. Google figured out early on that video would be a great addition to its search business, so in 2005 it launched Google Video. Focused on making deals with the entertainment industry for second-rate content, and overly cautious on what users could upload, it flopped . In 2006, Google snapped up that year-old company, figuring it would sort out the IP stuff later. Though the $1.65 billion purchase price for YouTube was about a billion dollars more than its valuation, it was one of the greatest bargains ever.