YouTube has tightened its rules on AI-generated content once again, this time by clarifying which types of videos can earn money through its platform. The goal is to discourage creators from flooding the site with low-quality material produced using artificial intelligence and other automated tools. Under the updated policy, YouTube now defines three specific categories of “inauthentic content” that are ineligible for monetization.

The company had already introduced policies targeting AI content last year, when it began restricting revenue from what it described as “inauthentic content”—including mass-produced videos and repetitive material made easier to generate with AI. The latest update adds more detail to those existing rules. The revised guidelines break inauthentic content into three distinct types: generic, repetitive, or template-based videos; content that is off-putting or distressing; and any material where AI-generated personas discuss sensitive subjects like health or finance.

While many people can recognize so-called “AI slop” when they see it—much like adult content—YouTube’s policies aim to spell out exactly when AI use is allowed or prohibited for videos monetized through the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). This program, which lets creators earn money from ads and subscriptions, is essential to YouTube’s business. Allowing it to become cluttered with low-quality AI content would hurt the company financially, especially as it competes with TV networks and streaming services for advertising dollars. YouTube now generates more ad revenue than rival streamers and has surpassed Netflix in average daily views worldwide.

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As YouTube’s trust and safety chief Matt Halprin explained in a recent Creator Insider video, the policy revision aims to reduce “content farming”—the practice of churning out low-quality videos solely to generate revenue. “AI can actually allow people to make a lot of videos,” Halprin said. “Sometimes those videos are great, and it really enhances creativity. And you can create a higher volume of high-quality content that we want to encourage and have in YPP.” He added, “But that exact same new tool can allow you to make lots of videos really quickly that are very similar. They’re very generic and don’t really have a narrative arc and don’t really show your creativity. So the same technology really enables great stuff, but it also enables stuff that’s kind of content farming, and that’s the stuff that we don’t want to have in YPP.”

The first category, according to Halprin, includes repetitive content such as material easily made with AI, computer-generated imagery (CGI), or templates, with little variation from video to video. This fills channels with cookie-cutter videos. He noted that tutorial videos could also fall under this policy if they simply reproduce content already prevalent on the platform, rather than offering something original.

The second category focuses on what YouTube calls “off-putting” content—material designed to be distressing or emotionally manipulative in order to chase views. An example Halprin gave is a video showing an animal in distress, followed by someone rescuing it. “We’ve heard from our viewers that that’s not something that they like. They find it off-putting. They don’t want to come back to that channel, or maybe even the platform,” he said. Channels dedicated to this kind of content will be removed from YPP, regardless of whether the content is AI-generated or not.

The third category directly targets the use of AI personas—representations of real people created with AI. YouTube says it does not want to incentivize creators who use AI personas to discuss sensitive topics like finance, legal issues, healthcare, or medical matters. Any channel that has too much of any of these three types of content will not be able to monetize, Halprin explained.

The policy clarifications took effect on July 16 and apply to all members of the YouTube Partner Program.