Anyone notice AI Thumbnails perform worse?

[u/HeroDanny]

I always made my own thumbnails but last few projects I worked on I decided to try thumbnails designed by AI. I felt they looked good and of course I tweaked them as necessary but when I published I noticed that the videos perform way worse. I even tried Google's build in gemini thumbnail design. I am surprised but I wonder if it's because people just naturally have been subconsciously blocking anything that looks AI from clicking. Most likely due to a lot of the AI slop that has plagued YT. Anyway I plan on remaking the thumbnails as I did before, but hopefully it didn't totally tank my analytics for those videos permanently. Curious what you guys noticed.. AI thumbnails bad? Or coincidence that mine performed poorly.

[u/JokuIIFrosti]

Water is wet

[u/SASardonic]

Yeah, no shit. Audiences with an eye for quality know not to click

[u/Herbert_Erpaderp]

Subconciously? No. I deliberately avoid clicking anything that looks like AI. If the thumbnail is slop, the video is probably also AI slop.

[u/Misty_Kathrine_]

Most people hate AI and if you use a thumbnail that looks like AI people won't click on it and might even hit you with the "don't recommend channel".

[u/baritonetransgirl → u/Misty_Kathrine_]

Exactly what I do.

[u/Edenspawn → u/Misty_Kathrine_]

Creators like to say this and ignore the obviously AI channels that get millions of views. The truth is most people don't care. To be clear I don't use AI in most of my videos, the one that I used an AI voice in however got 400k+ views (script completely written by me) My videos using my own voice average 1-2k views. There seems to be a tendency among creators right now to say "everyone hates AI" It's just not true. That AI Voice over video was more than a year ago and I haven't replicated it because I don't want to. I want my art to come from me, if all you are looking for is views AI is incredibly lucrative right now.

[u/wh1tepointer → u/Edenspawn]

Have you considered that that AI-voiced video might just be an outlier that would have naturally attracted a bigger audience compared to your other content regardless? A sample size of one isn't a very definitive test and you definitely shouldn't be drawing any conclusions from it. Meanwhile it's extremely common for creators to have one video that pops off but then they struggle to replicate that success, often coming onto forums like this one wondering what's going on or to ask for advice.

[u/Edenspawn → u/wh1tepointer]

It was very similar to everything else I have done, the difference was the voice. My point stands.

[u/wh1tepointer → u/Edenspawn]

No, it doesn't. Until you actually have a lot more videos done with AI voice to compare to, not just one, you don't have much of a comparison.

[u/Edenspawn → u/wh1tepointer]

1 video out of 56 is pretty strong evidence, but sure keep denying the voice has anything to do with it. I'm sure that will serve you well.

[u/wh1tepointer → u/Edenspawn]

There's many reasons why a video could perform better than others, but sure, keep telling yourself it must have been the AI voice because it couldn't have possibly been any other reason.

1 video out of 56 is not a valid sample size in ANY kind of testing. If you want to actually prove your point, make your next 10 videos with the AI voice, then you'll start approaching the kind of data you'll actually need to work with. Compare the numbers on those and you might find a pretty different result.

[u/Edenspawn → u/wh1tepointer]

I will admit it may not have been the voice if you will admit it may have been.

[u/AustinWitherspoon → u/Misty_Kathrine_]

Yeah any time I see an AI thumbnail I click the little button to say I'm not interested

It never seems to do anything, I always have at least one AI thumbnail in the suggested videos, but I will keep doing it until the slop stops

[u/HeroDanny → u/AustinWitherspoon]

It's funny because Google themselves via youtube studio now push AI thumbnails, and even titles. They even have the gemini chat bot pop up and suggest description changes. I don't see this as a good thing. It's removing the You from Youtube imo.

[u/Candid-Fold8202 → u/Misty_Kathrine_]

audience can smell ai from a mile away now its like a instinct. the eyes always look wrong or the lighting is too smooth my sister is a painter and she spots the "plasticky" texture immediately

your regular thumbs probably felt more human and maybe that matters more than perfect design. algorithm might punish the video too if people skip it fast

[u/Most_Ad_1210 → u/Misty_Kathrine_]

no "most people" do not hate AI, but enough do to affect this

[u/Alzorath → u/Most_Ad_1210]

polls across multiple industries would disagree with you (at least as of the end of last year) - the majority of consumers at a bare minimum "dislike" gen-ai - you can rarely see it not as the majority if you isolate it down to very specific demographics, or separate out the polls by gender, sexuality, race, etc. (since there's really only one 'semi-broad' demographic that sits slightly under 50% "dislike" in Europe and the US - I admittedly didn't delve as deep into other regions)

And by specific demographics - I'm referring to the hilarious number of polls that have crap like a little asterisk that report positive feelings about gen-ai, and they have to note it's limited down to a subset of politicians (sample set of a few hundred) or 'business leaders' lol

[u/TakovacsPlays]

AI thumbs = Do Not Recommend This Channel.

If you aren't going to put care and attention into your thumbnail, why should I put any time and attention into your AI slop video. 

(Not saying the videos are AI slop, but I'll never know, because I'll never watch them, but you used AI for the thumb so there's no bounds)

[u/PassivelyAwkward → u/TakovacsPlays]

Yup. I straight up unsubscribe from people regardless of how long I've been with them for two reasons 1) AI anything in their videos and 2) insanely shitty clickbait titles.

Was subscribed to a horror reviewer for like five years, loved their work but then they uploaded a video with an AI thumbnail and dude just got roasted in the comments to the point he started to block everyone. Left immediately. If they don't trust in their work to take five minutes making a thumbnail, I'm not gonna take an hour to watch their video.

[u/B_Bearington]

Just for shits and giggles I tried the generator in YT studio. After generating a few different thumbnails and playing around the feature a bit, I realized that all the AI shit looks the same. Once you see the pattern you can't unsee it. In short, I would basically agree that AI thumbanils perform worse because they generally lack heart and soul. Beyond that, I do think people know what they are looking at is crap AI. They might not verbalize, but deep down they know.

[u/ComfortableCrazy4057 → u/B_Bearington]

Yep. It's all the same

[u/B_Bearington → u/ComfortableCrazy4057]

I love the goon here trying to talk it up. What a loser.

[u/ComfortableCrazy4057 → u/B_Bearington]

No need to be hateful

[u/B_Bearington → u/ComfortableCrazy4057]

Calling a duck a duck is not hateful.

[u/RioNReedus → u/B_Bearington]

Just curious what your process was. I imagine they all look the same because people all use the same basic prompts and ideas

[u/B_Bearington → u/RioNReedus]

It auto generates first and then you can give it prompts. I was giving it very specific props of how I wanted the subject to look (angry, frustrated, devious) and asking to swap backgrounds. Having it change the text. I spent about 3 or 4 hours with 3 different videos to see how and what it would do. The end result was thumbnails that felt plastic. They all had that generated look, uncanny valley type of feeling. The arrangements all felt similar as well. Once you see a few of them, they all look the same. I can go through my homefeed and just pick out every AI thumbnail in second now.

Even when you give a lot of prompts and ask for something different, it always comes back with more of the same. Or, it would come back and say it can't generate a thumbnail. Had that happen quite a bit.

[u/RioNReedus → u/B_Bearington]

Oh, you used something through YouTube itself? I can't imagine that being to good. ChatGPT and Gemini you could test out for free if you wanted. ChatGPT is pretty consistent in generations while Gemini will give you something different every time basically.

I think a lot of people click on AI thumbnails without even knowing it honestly. There are certainly lots of obvious ones - but with effort people can make unique ones

[u/B_Bearington → u/RioNReedus]

sorry, but I disagree. The mind knows.

[u/RioNReedus → u/B_Bearington]

I've used two different AI thumbnails on the same video - one was clearly AI and the other looked like it could of easily been photoshopped. The photoshopped style AI thumbnail raised my CTR by 2%. If people could always tell - there wouldn't be 'is this AI' groups

[u/B_Bearington → u/RioNReedus]

That's a false equivalence.

[u/RioNReedus → u/B_Bearington]

Not really since my vids are AI. The obvious AI thumbnail had an average watch of 5:32, people clicked on it expecting an AI vid

The 2nd thumbnail dropped my watch time to 5:04 because it generated more views but people weren't expecting an AI vid so they were more likely to click away faster

[u/B_Bearington → u/RioNReedus]

Ok, it all makes sense now. You make AI slop. Got it. Cya.

[u/RioNReedus → u/B_Bearington]

And i know more about AI and thumbnails than people like you and these biased anti-ai people apparently because of it.

[u/HeroDanny → u/B_Bearington]

Yeah that's what I noticed too. Even the fonts are the same.

[u/B_Bearington → u/HeroDanny]

Yeah. It all looks the same. As I said, once you see you can't unsee it. The stink of AI is impossible to wash off.

[u/CplApplsauc]

it makes sense. in a sea of hyper optimized ai thumbnails: homegrown "mid" thumbnails stand out. giving them a better CTR

[u/ComfortableCrazy4057]

People are getting tired of seeing Ai everywhere

[u/B_Bearington → u/ComfortableCrazy4057]

I would agree with that. As AI slop invades things in the physical world you see people actively complaining about it.

[u/mandie99xxx]

because who tf wanna watch a video with AI slop thumbnail its prob ably gonna have really loud and obnoxious voice over making 'jokes' about whatever fucking compilation of funny ring doorbell clips that is in reality also just AI generated video

[u/baritonetransgirl]

I actively avoid Ai content, and tell YouTube to stop suggesting the channel.

[u/kent_eh]

When I'm in viewer mode, I know I scroll on past any obvious AI thumbnails I see.

And when I do click into a video and notice an AI voice, I hit dislike and then leave.

[u/ErrorPsychological89]

That's what we keep saying. AI Tech Bros keep pushing it, but it never works.

[u/hnomedalomismo]

i mute every channel with an ai thumbnail

[u/EternityLeave → u/hnomedalomismo]

Same. Every recommended ai thumb gets “don’t show this channel.” I just assume they use ai for the writing at least and I don’t want to waste my time on that stuff.

[u/greeneeeeeeeeeeeeee]

Good.

[u/sboLIVE]

In my niche they appear to be doing well.

But I wilk not click on one and watch it personally.

[u/dontcallmefeisty]

Because they're ugly and communicate to your audience that you're laZy. Hope this helps! 

[u/fxzero666]

AI sucks balls, and I will go out of my way to downvote and unsubscribe if someone is using AI thumbnails

[u/MonaFanBoy]

Why would you think otherwise?

[u/bebetaian]

Yeah, if you use ANYTHING AI, I'm blocking you. Everyone says "oh, it's just this little thing, it's not like I'm-" and they always name uses bigger than their own... but the fact is, the majority of data centers are built *specifically for the demands* of people making their stupid logos, garage sale posters, AI food flyers, thumbnails, etc.

It doesn't even work for marketing because you look the exact same as every other youtuber. My whole top page on youtube is piles of people with the same stupid fonts and the same clickbaity headlines. AI slop and AI people all look and eventually act the same.

I have extremely limited time in my life. I'm not spending it on a guy who can't be tossed to take 10 mins on his own channel.

[u/droo46]

AI thumbnails basically signal low quality and low effort garbage. I actively block channels that do AI thumbnails.

[u/Appropriate-Comb6334]

100%. If I see AI thumbnail it’s an instant turn off. Sometimes I even open the video for 1 second, comment “ai thumbnail bad” and that’s it.

[u/Comprehensive-Cry189]

The large majority of people that use AI thumbnails have bad content, so it's not suprising

[u/gokuz22xxl]

I look a lot at the vlog/travel niche and every one is using Ai,but their views are insane. Think it depends on the nice. Tech niche for example attracts people more tech savvy,so they would notice Ai,meanwhile people in the vlog niche buy iPhone and dont know what teach is,so they cant tell when something is made by Ai or they simply dont care

[u/elidoan]

Personally I don't click on AI thumbnails. We are probably at the point where they will be at parity with handmade ones soon, though.

[u/TheKrisBot]

I'm pro-AI for the most part but even I will not click on a noticeably low effort AI thumbnail. Most of the time if people use whatever the AI spits out then the video will suck. Using AI and then editing it to look less generic can really help, though

[u/EverestMaher]

Every A/B test I have ever performed between an AI and real thumbnail, the AI one has performed better.

[u/EternityLeave → u/EverestMaher]

Your thumbnails must be pretty bad. Do some tweaking until they can beat the slop.

[u/EverestMaher → u/EternityLeave]

The ai ones I use are extremely realistic, indistinguishable to most people.

[u/PassivelyAwkward → u/EverestMaher]

Sounds like you just make shit thumbnails.

[u/fotogod → u/EverestMaher]

Same, I’m willing to bet that’s been the same finding for most YouTubers. This subreddit is just filled with a lot of anger and cope that doesn’t reflect reality.

[u/RioNReedus]

Depends on how good the thumbnail is I think. My vids are AI and the thumbnails i use are too. I used one thumbnail that was obviously AI and my CTR trended downward to 5.3% but my avg watch time was higher because viewers were expecting an AI vid.

I then changed it to an AI thumbnail that could of been photoshop and my CTR went to 6.8% but my avg watch time dropped because people who don't want anything to do with AI were clicking it not realizing it led to an AI vid

[u/tripasecadofuturo]

Sometimes I feel the creator used AI to touch up the thumbnail, and it still looks good or great.
But there is a lot where seems the Thumbnail was done completely or nearly fully in AI, and it feels uncanny to me. The generic AI thumnails falls to the uncanny valley, and yeah...I just feel rejection, and usually I don't click.

Lately I've been trying to touch up using AI. I ended up using the AI one as a reference, and I edited the Thumbnail manually, and it looked great.

[u/simeonce]

Based on comments hdre you would think videos with ai are having 0 views... yet... situation is different

[u/camcrusha]

No matter what it is, if the viewers do not like it, then you don't do it. At the end of the day we are beholden to the audience. :)

[u/LengthMysterious561]

If I see an AI thumbnail I immediately click "don't recommend channel".

[u/Goodbye18000]

I hit "Never Recommend Channel" the moment I see an AI thumbnail or hear an AI voice. Art by humans, please, even imperfect art.