YouTube will start serving video in AV2 on the web beginning in early 2027, making Google’s platform the first major candidate to bring the Alliance for Open Media’s (AOMedia) new codec into production. The consortium announced it on October 22 alongside other backers: Google already plays AV2 in Chrome, and Netflix and Prime Video are evaluating the format. With compression roughly 30% better than AV1, the codec promises meaningful bandwidth savings, though its rollout will be gradual.
AV2’s arrival on YouTube in 20 seconds
- YouTube will serve AV2 on the web starting in early 2027; Chrome already plays it, and Netflix and Prime Video are evaluating it.
- AV2 compresses roughly 30% better than AV1, cutting bandwidth needs, and carries no royalties.
- Without compatible hardware, AV1 and AV2 will coexist on distribution networks for years.
Des Keane, YouTube’s director of engineering, said in AOMedia’s announcement that the platform is eager to start streaming in AV2 and that streams will be available on the web starting in early 2027. Jim Bankoski, VP of engineering for Google Chrome, called the browser demo a first step toward better video on the web, pointing to uses like multi-view video or more efficient video conferencing. Meta, for its part, committed to keep investing in the codec until it reaches production.
30% Less Bitrate for the Same Quality
AOMedia published the AV2 spec in June. In its guide for implementers, the consortium puts the improvement at around 30% better compression than AV1 at the same quality, measured with VMAF and PSNR across different content types and resolutions, and points to bitrate savings of close to 40% at matched visual quality. The codec also adds scalable streams, multiple views within a single stream for stereoscopic or multi-angle video, and improvements for HDR and high frame rates.
For anyone distributing video at scale, the math is simple: at equal quality, less data to store in CDNs and move across the network. YouTube starts from an already advanced base — as of March 19, more than 90% of its catalog, weighted by watch time, was available in AV1, and Netflix was already streaming close to 30% of its traffic in AV1, as CloudNews reported. Being royalty-free also matters against alternatives like HEVC or VVC, whose licensing has long been a sticking point.
Software First, Hardware Later
The bottleneck is in devices. AOMedia acknowledges that software arrives first and hardware later, and that AV1 and AV2 will coexist for a significant period. Today, no consumer GPU decodes AV2 in hardware, and VideoLAN, which develops the free dav2d decoder, estimates that decoding AV2 is about five times more complex than AV1. That forces services to keep multiple versions of each video and decide, on every playback, which format the client can handle — the same situation that played out during the shift from VP9 to AV1. On the encoding side, Intel is working on SVT-AV2 and showed demos at the IBC 2026 trade show.
YouTube’s first step is limited to the web, and there’s no timeline for apps, TVs, or mobile devices. It’s also unclear how much of the catalog will be encoded in AV2 or on what basis. CloudNews has followed the codec’s technical evolution from the start, including in this look at AV2 versus H.264, HEVC, VP9, and AV1.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AV2?
The successor to AV1, a royalty-free video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media, with compression roughly 30% better.
When will YouTube start using AV2?
On the web, starting in early 2027. There’s no timeline yet for apps or TVs.
What other platforms are backing AV2?
Google already plays it in Chrome, Netflix and Prime Video are evaluating it, and Meta has committed to bringing it into production.
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