October 26, 2026
The YouTube platform is preparing to adopt the new video compression standard “AV2” across the web version in early 2027, in a step aimed at raising display quality and reducing the amount of data required to play content, which contributes to reducing intermittency resulting from slow internet.
The Open Media Alliance (AOMedia), which includes more than 50 international companies in the fields of software and digital broadcasting, explained that the new standard represents the next generation of video coding, succeeding “AV1.” The coalition quoted Des Cain, Director of Engineering at YouTube, as saying that the platform is working to prepare for the use of “AV2” with the aim of providing advanced viewing experiences, including the ability to broadcast several video clips within a single data stream, while the platform has not set a date for making the technology available via smartphone applications or television devices.
The “AV2” standard, whose final specifications were published last June with the participation of major companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Netflix, Samsung, and Tencent, provides an improvement of approximately 30% in video compression efficiency compared to “AV1”, without using patent licensing fees. This development gives streaming platforms two options: Either provide higher image quality at the same data transfer rate, or maintain the current quality with less Internet consumption.
Despite these advantages, the coalition confirmed that Internet consumption will not decrease by 30% in all circumstances, as results vary depending on the nature of the video, resolution, and encoding settings. Reducing the size of the data may help alleviate the pauses associated with connection speeds, but it does not eliminate the interruption resulting from network disturbances or poor device performance.
In addition, the new standard supports processing multiple simultaneous video clips within a single data stream, allowing the development of multi-angle viewing experiences, or displaying more than one clip with a split screen, as well as supporting stereoscopic videos.
Approval of the final specifications for the technology does not mean its immediate availability to users, as its spread requires its integration into operating software, browsers, and hardware components for decoding. It is expected that the “AV1” standard will continue to be adopted in parallel with “AV2” during the transitional phase. Des Cain pointed out that more than 90% of the YouTube library was available in the “AV1” codec until last March 19, according to viewing time. In the same context, other companies such as Netflix and Prime Video have expressed interest in exploring the capabilities of “AV2” without specifying dates for its adoption.
