AI-generated videos are flooding the internet, thanks in large part to OpenAI's Sora 2, and people are now questioning whether every video they see is fake. Twitch, the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform, revealed some AI features last week that should even those odds, at least somewhat.
At TwitchCon 2025 in San Diego, the platform said AI would be coming to the platform in much more subtle ways. Twitch, which allows people to livestream themselves playing video games, doing makeup or walking the streets of Tokyo, is leaning into the analytical side of AI.
A feature called Auto Clip will have AI help creators quickly edit parts of a multi-hour stream to help preserve and spread the best moments to short-form social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Apart from using AI to quickly make clips, Twitch will also integrate with Meta's AI Ray-Bans, letting people stream directly from their glasses.
CNET
"One of the biggest things we're moving quickly on is content understanding," said Mike Minton, chief product officer at Twitch. "What is the streamer saying? What is happening in the stream? What's going on with chat? Our ability now to comprehend and, as a consequence, unlocks so many things that relates to things that directly help streamers."
Minton said only one in four streamers creates clips after a stream. Many top streamers have editors on staff to clip the best parts of their stream to spread across social media.
Hasan "HasanAbi" Piker, among other streamers, allows his community to clip streams and give them permission to reap the ad revenue. For smaller streamers, however, scrubbing through an eight-hour stream to find those perfect moments can be difficult.
It solves the problem of creating short-form content, letting streamers focus on the important work of keeping audiences connected and introducing themselves to new people, said Minton.
Twitch is the second-largest live streaming platform in the world, just after YouTube, according to Stream Charts. Purchased by Amazon for $970 million in 2014, Twitch currently boasts 240 million active monthly users and 7.3 million streamers, according to Demandsage. Many top streamers have become multi-millionaires from ad revenue alone, per leaked reports. Despite the impressive numbers, Twitch remains unprofitable, according to a 2024 Wall Street Journal report. There's fear that it's becoming a "zombie brand" -- an acquisition that'll become sidelined because it hasn't met expectations -- according to current and former employees who spoke to the Journal. While Amazon hasn't given a breakdown of Twitch's finances, recent statements and monetization pushes suggest more needs to be done.
As a free platform, Twitch largely relies on ads and brand deals to make its revenue. In 2022, Twitch attempted to end its 70/30 ad split for top streamers, hoping to make 50/50 the standard. It ultimately rescinded the decision. The site has recently been upping the number of ads appearing on streams and giving creators better insight into how ads can lead to larger payouts. These practices have irked some fans. Twitch has also begun cracking down on viewbots -- a program designed to artificially inflate viewer counts -- so both streamers and advertisers have a better sense of how many people are actually watching. Given these headwinds, Twitch laid off 500 employees in early 2024, about 35% of its workforce.
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