YouTube has announced it will begin AV2 streaming early next year, aiming to enhance video quality and open new multi-video capabilities.
Des Keane, engineering director at YouTube, said, “YouTube champions open codecs that deliver the best quality video with the fewest playback interruptions. As of March 19, 2026, over 90 per cent of YouTube’s catalogue (weighted by watch time) is available in AV1.
“We’re excited to begin streaming in AV2, which brings even better video quality to users and unlocks new multi-video capabilities. YouTube AV2 streams will be available for Web as soon as early 2027.”
The statement follows an announcement from the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), highlighting “significant ecosystem momentum” behind the royalty-free video codec. Developed through voluntary standardisation efforts by Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Netflix, Samsung, Tencent and the wider alliance, AV2 provides around 30 per cent greater compression efficiency than AV1, while introducing capabilities including multi-stream video, real-time communications, immersive applications, higher frame rates, and enhanced HDR performance.
Uptake of the codec mirrors the adoption pattern set by AV1, said AOMedia, which currently powers video across streaming services, browsers, mobile devices, operating systems and more. The established ecosystem is helping members facilitate AV2’s transition from specification to deployment, with several already demonstrating and evaluating the codec across production environments, open-source projects, and consumer-facing platforms.
An increasing number of alliance members are contributing technologies that support encoder and decoder development, compliance testing, benchmarking, validation, interoperability testing, content creation workflows, and hardware readiness, added the organisation.
