hello and welcome to the global dialogue I'm sharen B and it is our pleasure and privilege to have on the program Neil Mohan the global CEO of YouTube joining us here today Neil many thanks for joining us you're on CNBC TV8 and welcome to India and if I could start by saying that this is a bit of a special homecoming for you isn't it because it's not just your first visit as CEO to India but you have a special India connection uh because you you did what high School here in LNA yeah um and obviously
I'm of Indian descent I grew up uh mostly in the midwest in the US uh I was born in Indiana when my when my father was a grad student there uh and I moved uh back to uh lenow where my where my family's from and uh went to high school here as you point out so in that sense it is a bit of a homecoming of course I have lots of friends and family and and the like here that I've stayed in touch with over the years but uh it's a homecoming uh in that sense
and it's also a homecoming in the sense of my role as the CEO of YouTube and getting to meet all these amazing creators that I've only connected with either electronically or or in other ways and getting to meet them in person too well I would imagine that that's going to be pretty exciting but let's talk about India and the role relevance and significance of India as far as the YouTube Global story is concerned what's exciting about India I know it's one of your fastest growing markets but if you could give us some color on just
how important and significant it is for you yeah I would say a few things about that so as you point out it is our uh fastest growing Market it's also our largest market in terms of audience and and and and viewers and so in many ways it is um uh so amazing to see the vibrancy of our creator ecosystem here in India to see you know just walking uh along the streets outside of my hotel seeing how YouTube is used in everybody's daily lives uh seeing all these amazing creators and so seeing that vibrancy is
amazing but the other thing that I think is also really interesting to see and you really don't get it until you experience it firsthand which I've been doing is how India is leading in lots of just Global Trends uh in terms of the Creator economy all over the world lots of things happen here first well you know as an example um this is uh our first but also largest market for shorts we launch Shorts YouTube shorts here uh I'd say now about four years ago and uh We've served up trillions of views uh on on
on uh YouTube shorts lots of things that happen on shorts in terms of fandom and Trends and things like that I see first Happening Here in India and I think a lot of that is just a testament to uh the creativity the storytelling culture here um and so it's just super exciting to see firsthand you know you talked about the storytelling culture and and how you're seeing that uh manifest itself in the way that people are consuming but also creating here in India but if I you know were to go back back a little bit
and talk about how you see YouTube for the future and I know that you believe that it is at YouTube is at the Nexus of technology and creativity at the back end you've got software engineers at the front end you've got the creative economy sort of driving it do you see that mix changing do you think at the back end we're going to see you hire differently as you move to more and more of a creative era H that's a that's a really interesting question and I think that um you know our mission mission is
to give every want a voice and show them the world and that's like a it's like a it's a very simple sentence but I think it has a profound meaning in terms of how we approach our business and I always say the way I always talk about it with our teams is our job is to build the stage and it should be the world's best stage and what I mean by that is metaphorically it should have the best technology should have the best experience for viewers uh uh but the people who are on the stage
are our creators musicians artists all of our Media Partners and so the value that we're adding to that equation is the the quality of that stage and that's really the technology and so we bring um uh the technological innovation whether it's AI whether it's new Creator tools whether it's our Discovery mechanism so that new creators are found every day but the creativity comes from our creators and we have a team an amazing team really throughout India that works hand inand with our creators to make them successful or help them be successful on our platform but
the way that we are going to participate is always from a Technology Innovation standpoint you know I'll get to the tech in just a bit but I want to pick up on what you just said on on what's Happening as far as the the Creator economy is concerned so it's not the algorithm it's authenticity that's driving the Creator economy well you know the way the best way to really think about the algorithm and uh a person on my team uh always reminds us of this is that you should replace the word algorithm with audience because
what the algorithm or our recommendation systems on YouTube are doing are are are connecting you as efficiently as possible if you're a creator with your audience with your fans all over the world and so think of the algorithm so to speak as your fans your audience because that's what YouTube's job is is to put your amazing creativity in front uh of those fans and so that's really um how we think about it and that's our role is to continue to use our Innovation our AI to do that um you know and as a result um
that works for our creators but also works for our viewers you know according to comcore we are the largest streaming platform on connected TV we have the largest you know viewership both in terms of watch time but also in terms of actual viewers and so that's just a testament of of this creative ecosystem sort of working for our creators but also for our viewers so I want to understand from you you know uh what you see as the potential Headroom for growth uh add uh Revenue up 133% year on year if I look at at
your Q2 numbers uh for Google and subscriptions up 14% largely driven by by YouTube given the kind of appetite for growth that you see what could this potentially be over the next few years so you called out a couple of them so you as you point out we do have this sort of twin engine growth model or business model if you will and so I would say that in my view we're in the early days of both of those business opportunities I think the advertising ecosystem will continue to grow uh I'm here o to meet
with a lot of our largest advertisers Our Brands what they tell me when I meet with them uh here on the ground in India but all over the world is uh they love that authentic connection between creators and their fans and they want to participate in that so I think there's a lot of upside to be had there uh on the subscription side I think we know we've been in the YouTube music and premium business for a few years now as you point out we've seen really nice success there over a 100 million subscribers for
YouTube premium um around the world uh but I think there also uh there's lots of upside to be had because those are often times some of our most passionate and Ardent users of our platform and so there's a lot more growth to be had on that side of our business so when you talk about growth and when you talk about uh you know consolidating your dominance whether it's music or looking at sports differently what kind of Innovations both on the front end as well as on the business model can we expect and how do you
differentiate yourself from all the others I mean let's start by talking about music for instance I mean there there is an offering that YouTube provides which is different from say a Spotify or whatever else is available at this point in time but what kind of Innovations both on the business model side monetization uh that you bring to the table for the future yeah so I I'll start with music and as I said I mean you know one of the things that's nice about our space is that it is an incredibly competitive space there's lots in
lots of competition which keeps us on our toes and keeps the space very Dynamic so you know you mentioned some of them there um but you know you called out a differentiate or uh on the music side it is about the fact that we have um all of this amazing music from our music Partners uh record labels publishing uh companies uh but we have all of this content this fandom that's created around music uh so it's not just you know a partic a popular track whether it's a Bollywood track or what have you it's all
the organic content that gets created on YouTube by fans of that that enhance the experience if you're a music lover so that's like a uh unique characteristic I would describe which is not only do we have the musicians and the artists doing what they do but all the fandom that's created around them is what really sort of powers this Creator Creator ecosystem but in terms of like uh Trends I I'll call out a couple of things that you um uh that I would say broadly one is um you know just the continued just rapid acceleration
of shorts I mentioned trillions of of views you know 70 billion views a day uh globally on shorts I think that's really early days but the other really big one that I'm very excited about and it's one that I think India is also leading the way on is connected TV so as I mentioned uh we are the number one streaming platform on connected TV uh the use of connected TV has grown Forex uh in the last few years for us uh if you're a top Creator on our platform your audience has grown 400% uh uh
the the number of uh uh your the top Creator whose majority of audience comes from connected TV has grown 400% so that I think is also a really big early days Trend so connected TV on one end of the spectrum short form content on the other and kind of everything in between but you know the economics from a Creator's perspective and I understand that you've given out about 50 billion over the past three years to creators on account of the content that they've created on YouTube specifically I mean what are we talking about what could
the size be to Loosely sort of call the Creator economy well I think that um uh one sort of key thing to call out there which I'm really excited about and you see it again here in the Indian context is the you know the Creator economy you know we're the original and largest Creator economy and we intend for that to continue to grow but the lines are blurring in terms of who's a Creator uh who's a participant who's a viewer so I think uh you know shortz is another good example of that uh one of
the reasons why I believe shorts has grown so rapidly in India is because it's given permission um both in terms of creativity but also in terms of the technology for all of us to be creators we have creators on our platform um uh there's a a Creator named beu who started during uh covid uh and he is now the largest Creator not just in India but in all of Asia and he started as a shorts Creator and so create the the participatory nature of creation itself is changing and so uh it's uh what I mean
by that is like the potential of the Creator economy economy therefore is Limitless so it's not just a sustainable career it can be a hugely profitable career as well I think so I mean I always to say one of our goals is not just to help creators build an audience but to build a business because it's when they actually start uh earning revenue from uh from YouTube from the Creator economy is what they can then sort of plow back back into their creativity and continue to do that we have uh over 3 million creators in
the YouTube Partner program and my goal is to continue to grow the number of creators that are participating because it's through that Economic Opportunity that uh they get to continue to do what they love so what do you believe that Economic Opportunity could be five years on I mean you know if you're talking about creative entrepreneurs that you're essentially helping create what could that opportunity look like in the next I me it's hard for me to say exact put a put a dollar figure figure on it but I think that uh we're really still in
the early days of what that potential could be and remember when I use the term creators I'm talking about endemic Creator shorts creators you know you could be doing you know a 15-second short to a 15minute you know VOD to 15-hour live stream and everything in between and the formats vary too right so could be video could be podcasting uh could be audio could be music of course and so all of that is uh the vibrancy of the creativity and so if you add all of that who knows what the potential could be a few
years from now I I want to take you back to your product days uh and now is CE you you know how much of what you did during your product days have you had to unlearn or are there new learnings that you had to bring to the table as CEO yeah that's a really interesting question I would say that um you know a lot of what I do in my CEO role um uh is frankly a continuation of what I was doing a lot on the when I was the chief product officer and helping build
our products because fundamentally as I as I described to you in terms of our role in the Creator economy it is to build the products it's to build that stage that I described and so I still participate of course in setting the overall product strategy for the company but I believe it or not on a weekly basis I'm in product reviews working with the product team messing about with the products I play I mean I use the products I've got you know um my wife and my three kids are heavy users of the product so
the Mohan household is a big YouTube family so I get lots of prod prod feedback just from my own family members and that's one of the fun parts of the job is to continue to push the envelope in terms of innovation whether it's a small feature that a Creator is telling me about or Big Ideas like how do we invest in AI so you know on that you preempted my question so what's next now as far as Innovation is concerned and what is the role specifically of AI and gen AI if if the idea really
has been to use YouTube to democratize content and content creation how does gen AI change the game yeah um so I'm glad you said both Ai and geni because today the AI conversation sort of tends to focus on geni and I'll come to that in a second but you know keep in mind that we have been investing in AI on YouTube for many many years now if you think about again the algorithm and recommendations on our platform that's powered by Machine learning and all the investment that we've made on that front that we will continue
to do everything that we do from a responsibility standpoint in terms of protecting our ecosystem the two billion users that come to the platform form that's also a big investment in AI but the generative AI piece I think is really interesting again back to something that you said at the very beginning which is YouTube really does sit at the Nexus of creativity and media on the one hand and Technology on the other and so I view our unique position in this generative gen Revolution as connecting those two spheres creativity and technology and so what does
that mean well it means at least from my perspective that everything that we're going to be doing as it relates to generative AI is going to be in service of our creators okay meaning that there are going to be tools never replacing our creators and because augmenting essentially yeah because I've seen two there's two things that I know are true every time there's like a really sort of big technology Revolution at least in the creative space one is we all as human beings are really interested in stories of other human beings and so our creators
are always going to be front and center in this new world but I also know that these tools can can lead to new set of opportunities that we can't even imagine today so our investment is sort of squarely on thinking about generative AI as uh a set of tools for our creators and again here I think India has been leading the way so we've created a um Standalone app called YouTube create it is a creation app um and it is an app that we are going to infuse with generative AI capabilities uh to uh help
creators produce content on their mobile phones we have a couple of experiments that we have been doing one's called um dream track which is a way uh and a music AI incubator so we have creators and uh like King who are part of that music AI incubator giving us feedback on how generative AI can enhance the Music Experience for fans and dream track is an example of that where you can give a text prompt and actually generate music you know out of thin air dream screen is another version of a product where now if you're
a creator and you say something like um give me you know uh you know a background with uh you know India Gate and clouds in the background that are you know XYZ color it can generate that in a matter of seconds that previously might have taken that Creator maybe a day or at least several hours to produce using a set of tools and so that's what I mean it's like uh allowing our creators to do something much more efficiently than they otherwise wouldn't or allowing an entirely new class of creators to do something that would
have been impossible before and that's the focus of our generative AI so what kind of money are you putting towards uh being able to create some of these tools I mean what is the Quantum of Investments both on the AI side as well as on the Gen side you know I as I said you know the A on the core just AI in general I think that that is just deeply infused into our overall product development so you know all the work that we do uh on the trust and safety side on recommendation side that's
just infused with this investment in AI so it's even hard to sort of parse uh what's AI versus what's non AI Etc it's really just part of our product development and when it comes to generative AI Investments the way I think and here we obviously have YouTube we have a deep collaboration with our sister company and Google Deep Mind and and that that research and that's more fundamental research and large language models our job is to build the products and features that our creators are going to use that are viewers are going to use and
there also I just I view that as core to our product development process in order for us to be successful uh in this new technology it has to be infused in terms of how we think about all of the features and so I'm giving you the philosophy in terms of how we think about them as tools for our creators but if we think about them that way then they should be infused in everything that we do for our creators you know you talked about Innovation but let me also tie that down to what's happening as
far as regulation is concerned and uh and talk specifically about what's happening in India we've got a pretty controversial broadcast Draft broadcast Bill uh that is not up for discussion yet but there are uh consultations that have taken place how do you read that the critics of the bill argue that it is uh a censorship by compliance essentially uh what is YouTube's reading of the Draft broadcast bill in India and do you see similar Provisions anywhere else in the world um well I mean as you point out we work with uh regulators and our stakeholders
and governments really all over the world and I think that the at the highest level we have uh shared interests which are to make sure that uh citizens of all of these countries in which YouTube operates uh get the most benefit out of platforms like YouTube and making sure that you know those those users are protected on our platform which is a very very shared interest between our our government partners and stakeholders and and YouTube and all of our creators with respect to the broadcast Bill specifically I think it's real it's early days um um
we're reviewing the bill we're looking forward to that consultative process that you called out with the government and continuing those conversations so that's probably the most I I would be able to say about that my team obviously is going through uh um the analysis uh of it as well but yeah go ahead no no is is this an getting to be a bigger challenge for you to deal with as CEO today I mean you know India's Got This Draft broadcast Bill Regulators around the world are looking at ways to be able to clamp down uh
on content that they believe should not exist on public platforms uh is it getting harder to navigate public spaces online I I I think that that comes with um uh our our position in terms of uh how Central we are to the creative economy in in in a market like India but really all over the world and so in some sense engaging with government partners and our stakeholders is is a is a privilege and also frankly a necessity because I do think that we have these shared goals like at the end of the day my
number one priority at YouTube and none of the things that we talked about in terms of business models or innovation or Creator opportunities would be possible without living up to our responsibility and that means everything from uh you know we are a platform uh as I said our mission is to give everyone a voice we're an open platform a platform where there are all kinds of opinions all types of speech on our platform but it is from the very early days that doesn't mean anything goes yeah we've always had Community guidelines and it's our job
our responsibility at YouTube to make sure that our community guidelines stay up to date they reflect uh the nature of the Societies in which we operate uh and then to be transparent about them and then do our best using all this technology that I described using you know the thousand of people we have all over the world that are enforcing those Community guidelines do our best to enforce them and that's really the only way that I know how to live up to our responsibility and also maintain the openness of our platform that has created all
of this opportunity you know and that that is is the current challenge isn't it uh free speech and yet uh the need to ensure that there is moderation and there are guidelines and it is a safe space uh uh what's been the experience on that front to I mean you know I remember you saying that whatever's happening in the world is happening on YouTube and we have active walls currently on in the world at this point in time you know we've got situations that have just taken place over the last few days where uh there
is an active call inciting violence for instance in different parts of the world uh do you believe that there is a need to perhaps review um the the moderation uh Community guidelines the moderation policy is there a need to engage uh actively with Regulators with governments at this point in time around the world I mean how do you see the road ahead on this front going forward I mean I think you you encapsulated it it quite well I do think um uh what happens in the world happens on YouTube and what happens on YouTube does
influence what happens in the world and that's why uh living up to our responsibility here in India but really globally everywhere that we operate around the world is my top priority it's what I will prioritize above everything else else uh because it is um the right thing for us to do but it is also the basis of you know the business opportunities the creater economy everything that we've talked about and so we work very closely with uh our partners in government here in India but really uh all throughout the world and uh I would say
that um we have um a clear set of community guidelines that we have invested in very heavily over the years in many ways we have learned through trial by fire um over the years to to understand sort of how those Community guidelines could be written how how they should be clear but they are always up for um uh um uh being modified uh it's important for us to have clear principles but then also to be flexible in terms of how we adjust them because as you rightly point out what's happening in the world is changing
on a regular basis and so that's really how I've approached the space and you know it's something that's near and dear to my heart it used to be what I was was responsible for even as a chief product officer before I took over as CEO and it's something as I said that I'm going to prioritize both in terms of my time but also resources at the company before anything else and I know you you know you've got the three PS that you believe in uh people principles and and process and and I can see that
you know principles is part part really of your uh Legacy as coo that you want to leave behind but uh just just to continue on this the Quantum of content that you're having to take down today versus a couple of years ago voluntarily uh versus what governments or Regulators are asking you to take down uh uh which you sometimes may or may not agree with if you can give me some color on on how things have changed on that front well what I would say is that uh generally speaking at the highest level I don't
think uh things have changed that dramatically in terms of uh the number of videos you know every quarter we remove millions of videos from our platform many times majority of the channels that we remove are uh you know kind of spam and those types of things that H uh that we you know we we pride ourselves in being very efficient in terms of removing because they sort of clutter The Experience get in the way of the viewer and Creator experiences and that you know hasn't changed I mean those are those things have sort of that
in terms of the raw raw numbers there and remember even when I say millions of videos removed from the platform on a quarterly basis that's a very small fraction of the Corpus of content that's available on on on YouTube so I would say that that's been uh relatively consistent what is also consistent of course is that any country that we operate in we are going to abide by the laws of that country and so uh when there are um uh uh when the process in terms of following the law uh comes into place and that
sort of Channel exists we are going to comply with that and so that's you know something that we're very clear about uh we want to be efficient about and that's sort of how we approach it but I will just you know bringing it back to where the conversation started it's important to keep in mind that the vast vast majority of creators and the viewership and the watch time that we're talking about uh is really about all of these amazing verticals that exist on our platform whether it's sports or learning or cooking or music or all
of those and that's really the core experience that I'm witnessing you know during my time here in Delhi uh that viewers are telling me about regularly you know you talked about learning is one of the exciting verticals of on YouTube uh uh going back to your startup days what was it organic chemistry that you were hoping to teach people you've done a lot done like lots of research here yes you know that was one of my first uh foray into entrepreneurship it was a computer s i was you know I've been a computer science uh
uh Enthusiast even in my early days in high school in LNO and I had uh I remember my very first computer and I love for some reason I love chemistry that was one of my favorite subjects so I combined my love for computer science and chemistry and I created this software package this organic chemistry package that just taught people about organic chemistry and then I I did a 1.0 version of that then I did a two. version which was like how do you do organic chemistry experiments and anyways that was uh that is a blast
from the past but that is that you know the roads I guess in some sense all lead back to that in in some you know that was a blast from the blast but let's let's end with the future Neil you know you give me a glimpse into what is exciting at this point in time but what to your mind could YouTube potentially be over the next few years you know what are the new Vistas for instance that you would hope to to touch to achieve yeah I think again back to our mission in a nutshell
I want to be I want to make sure that we are the best streaming platform for creating sharing and watching video whether it's 15 seconds 15 minutes 15 hour live streams and and everything in between and so for us uh for me that's about investing in as we talked about Ai and generative AI in terms of Creator tools uh investing in new ways new avenues of monetization to continue to grow the Creator economy so avod business models svod business models uh but two others that I'm very excited about are things like shopping and commerce I
think that's another area where India will lead the way uh fan funding so direct to Consumer business models for our creators so that's another aspect and then as I pointed out the growth of both participatory creation via tools like shorts on mobile but also increasingly consumption on uh connected TVs especially for the younger generation in India when they turn on the television set they're turning on YouTube and so we have to lean into that and make sure that it's the best experience possible you know and end by asking you we grew up in an era
of linear TV and then you know then then we had cable and so on and so forth and it was 60 Minutes on the news and today you're doing 15 seconds on on shorts and so on and so forth I mean how much of of sort of being a part of this ecosystem has meant for you personally to really uh you know adapt not just to change but to connect with this demographic as well yeah that's an interesting question I I um back to the early days I am a technologist but I've also been a
media junkie I love everything from I love news news I love sports what do you spend most of your time on uh in terms of content Sports probably I'm a sports nut um you know i' I've watched I watch all kinds of sports basketball football Cricket YouTube's uh you know did 50 billion views of cricket I think in the last uh 12 months and so I just love I love all forms of media and that's what keeps me excited about the job that I'm in and and you're right like a lot of this is through
the lens of young people I've got three young people in my own house I get get to see what they're um what they assume as just a given around their media consumptions as you as you mentioned I still remember the days when as you said we went from linear TV here to uh to Cable right with the Advent of star and the like and changed the game right like for as a media kid like myself it was like my mind was blown and I think that's happening to this generation through things like shorts where they
get to participate but also you know live stream and watching all this fandom so like you know my son he watches uh Sports he'll watch the live games but he watches all this amazing Creator commentary that's happening uh in parallel to it just like the way that I would watch you know a cricket highlight show when I was in high school so advice to Legacy Media incumbents like us I mean what should we do or not do uh to to sort of flourish and thrive in in the era that we live in today well I
first of all I think you and you know this I mean you're your channel and set of channels on YouTube are incredibly successful and so you figured something out in terms of we've had our best month in July so that's good news so I think it's really a continuation of that and uh I I view uh you know what you what uh you know what you're doing but also what I think news in general is doing of Leaning into all forms of format storytelling uh it's awesome to see how uh uh journalists are personalities on
our platform because that authenticity really comes true through and it's uh it's everything from shorts to you know kind of 24-hour live streams and everything in between that's another area where I'm just amazed being on the ground here in terms of how um traditional media companies news organizations have really embraced and leaned into YouTube as a way to not just connect with younger audiences but just really to kind of move forward their businesses overall Neil it's been an absolute pleasure we wish you the very best of luck and we look forward to seeing you back
here in India soon uh and thank you very much for sharing your insights as well as your views on what YouTube's future looks like appreciate your time here on CNBC TV8 thank you so much for having me I appreciate it well with that it is time for us to wrap up this edition of the global dialogue from all of us here on the team goodbye thanks for watching stay tuned there's a lot more coming up right after this [Music]
