---
title: 'You''re Missing YouTube''s Biggest Opportunity Right Now'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=dj6yrAwHgx4'
video_id: 'dj6yrAwHgx4'
date: 2026-08-10
duration_sec: 846
---

# You're Missing YouTube's Biggest Opportunity Right Now

> Source: [You're Missing YouTube's Biggest Opportunity Right Now](https://youtube.com/watch?v=dj6yrAwHgx4)

## Summary

This video explains a major opportunity for small YouTube creators: YouTube has introduced a dedicated team to discover and promote smaller channels. The creator outlines the reasons behind this shift, including a focus on content discovery, the declining importance of subscribers, and the rise of AI-generated content, and then details five key signals creators can use to get their channels noticed and pushed to larger audiences.

### Key Points

- **YouTube's New Discovery Team** [00:02] — YouTube has introduced a team dedicated to finding smaller channels and helping them reach bigger audiences. Tiny channels with less than 200 subscribers are being pushed to millions of new viewers.
- **Why YouTube is Doing This** [00:56] — YouTube is taking content discovery more seriously. They want to avoid the platform feeling stale and are distributing views more evenly, which is why even big creators like Mr. Beast have seen view drops.
- **Subscribers Are Now Irrelevant** [02:20] — Subscribers no longer drive video distribution. Most viewers use the homepage and suggested videos, not the subscriptions tab. New features like 'Ask YouTube' and custom feeds are moving towards personalized recommendations.
- **The AI Slop Factor** [03:43] — The rise of low-quality AI content has made genuine human creators stand out. YouTube's discovery team was set up to find and push authentic channels above AI slop, rewarding creators who make videos that feel human.
- **Signal 1: Clean Target Viewer** [05:20] — Define your target viewer in one sentence: 'My target viewer is someone who is interested in X, they already watch Y, and wants videos that feel like Z.' This helps the algorithm understand who to show your videos to.
- **Signal 2: Reason to Replace Existing Videos** [06:42] — With over 14 billion videos on YouTube, your video must improve on existing content. Watch similar videos and write down at least five things you can do better, such as personality, editing style, or adding background music.
- **Signal 3: Fill the Recommendation Gap** [09:23] — Create videos that naturally follow top-performing videos in your niche. Ask what someone would want to watch next and create content that sits side by side with bigger videos, not directly competing with them.
- **Signal 4: Take Advantage of What AI Can't Do** [11:10] — Lean into human presence, real relationships, lived experience, and true taste. These are things AI cannot replicate, and viewers are craving them. Niches like travel, fitness, and documenting real experiences have an advantage.
- **Signal 5: Make the Algorithm's Job Easier** [12:33] — Before making a video, write down: 'This video is for, this video is about, and this video should be shown to.' Use these answers to guide your titles, thumbnails, descriptions, tags, and hashtags.

### Conclusion

YouTube is actively seeking fresh, genuine creators to push to larger audiences. By defining a clear target viewer, improving on existing content, filling recommendation gaps, leveraging human qualities, and making the algorithm's job easy, small channels can seize this opportunity before it closes.

## Transcript

the biggest opportunities ever on YouTube right now. And no, I'm not talking about their latest feed updates or algorithm changes. I'm talking about one of the biggest windows YouTube has ever opened for creators, and most
people don't even know this is happening. But right now, YouTube is doing something they've never done before. They've introduced a team dedicated to finding smaller channels and helping those channels reach bigger
audiences. And we're seeing tiny channels, some with less than like 200 and pushed out to millions of new viewers. But look, this opportunity won't last forever, so you need to take advantage of it right now. So in this
video, I'm going to explain the key reasons why YouTube has introduced this now, and then after that, I'll show you the five key things you need to do to have your channel selected and pushed out. Let's get into it. So why are they
doing this? Well look, the main reason this is happening is because YouTube has started taking content discovery way more seriously. Now for years, small creators have felt like it was almost impossible to break through. You could
upload loads of really good videos, but up so much of the attention in your niche, small channels were often just ignored by the algorithm. But now on the other hand, YouTube seems to be taking a
different approach. They have people working specifically on growth and discovery. And a big part of that is trying to find new videos and new channels that deserve to be shown to more new people. And this makes total
because if viewers keep seeing the same creators over and over again, the platform starts to feel a bit stale and boring. So YouTube needs fresh channels, fresh ideas, and fresh videos. And this is why some of the biggest creators have
seen their views dropping lately. Like the most famous example is Mr. Beast. His views have dropped massively compared to what they were 12 or 24 any of the biggest creators in your niche, I can guarantee that their views
have dropped lately, too. And that's all because YouTube is now trying to distribute those views and that attention more evenly. And this opens up a massive opportunity for smaller channels. But this is also happening at
the same time as two other major shifts, which is creating the perfect storm. Now, the first major shift is the fact that subscribers are basically irrelevant now. And yeah, obviously they still do matter for things like
comes to actually getting your videos pushed to new people, your subscriber account is no longer important like at all. And years ago, a lot of creators treated subscribers like the main engine for their channel. The more subscribers
videos, and the more views you'd probably get. But YouTube just doesn't work like that anymore. And think about how you use YouTube yourself. Like most people are subscribed like 20 different channels, but they rarely ever click on
that subscriptions tab. Most people just go straight to the homepage, they watch one video, then they'll get suggested another one, and then suddenly they're from creators they've never even seen before. And that there is the
opportunity. And this is becoming even more important now because YouTube is introducing new features like ask YouTube and custom feeds, and these are moving the platform towards a more personalized recommendation, where
viewers can literally just ask for specific types of videos or a specific viewing experience. So, when discovery becomes more specific and personalized to the individual viewers, it's not always the biggest creators who win.
It's actually the best videos that best match what that individual viewer wants. Now, the second reason of this perfect storm is because of AI slop. And no, look, before we get into this, I'm not saying all AI content is bad because
some of it isn't. Some creators are actually using AI really well, but there's no denying there is a huge amount of low-quality AI slop being uploaded every single day. And most people, including the people over at
tired of it. Like, I don't know about you, but I find it so easy to tell when a video has no real personality and no real human connection behind it. And because there's so much of that content on YouTube now, real human creators
stand out. And this is one of the main reasons that the discovery team was actually set up at YouTube so they could find and push genuine channels up above all of the AI slop and make sure that actual viewers are showed as much
genuine content as possible and not AI. What it's looking for now is creators who can make videos that actually feel human and genuine. And it's rewarding before we get into the five key signals, it's important to understand YouTube is
not going to just push any random channel for the sake of it. They aren't stupid. You actually have to get your channel noticed in the first place because there's millions of other channels trying to do the same thing.
So, to take advantage of this opportunity and get your channel noticed by YouTube and the team, you need to provide certain signals. And when you give YouTube these signals, it can understand your channel faster and it
your videos out. So, for the rest of the five key signals and how you can use them. So, please do listen up, these are important. All right. So, the first key signal is a clean target viewer. YouTube
wants to push your videos out. It does, but it also needs to be very careful on who it pushes your videos in front of. Now, the last thing YouTube wants is to keep showing the wrong videos to the wrong viewers Because that completely
ruins the viewer experience. And this is where a lot of small channels just go wrong. Because if you don't know who your video is for, how is YouTube supposed to know who to show it to? So, what you need to do from now on is you
video you create is designed for just one target viewer. Not 10, not 20, not 100, just one person. And you need to know exactly who you're speaking to before you even press record. Now, the more consistent you can be with this,
the quicker the algorithm will understand exactly who your content is for and who to show it to. So, I actually want you to write this down in one simple sentence. And this is kind of format that I use. My target viewer is
someone who is interested in X, they already watch Y, and wants videos that feel like Z. Now, obviously, just replace the X, Y, and Z with your answers. And once you've completed that and you know it, every video you then
make becomes easier. Because you know exactly who you're speaking to. It's a well. So, give it a try. Now, the second key signal is you need to give YouTube a reason to replace existing videos. There are so many videos already on YouTube.
It's estimated there's over 14 billion videos already on the platform. So, by sheer mathematics, if you post a video out, there are probably already thousands of videos on that same topic of your video. And a lot of the videos
already out there are really good videos and already pulling in loads of views. And the algorithm is already confident in these videos that are already there. So, what happens is when you post a new video out, your video needs to give
YouTube a reason to choose yours instead of what's already out there. Now, if your video doesn't improve on those videos already out there, YouTube will have no reason to choose it. And the quickest way to do this is to find and
are most similar to the one you want to make, watch those videos, and then I need you to write down at least five things that you can improve on that will make your video better than theirs. It could be as simple as things like
personality, speed of talking, or the shots they use, the editing style, or if they didn't use any background music, you could add some in yours. Now, background music can instantly elevate the overall quality of a video, and I'd
recommend giving it a try. Now, the best music platform out there for creators is Epidemic Sound, and whenever I food music or sound effects in my videos, I always use them. They've got a catalog of over 55,000 premium music tracks and
over 250,000 sound effects you can choose from. So, they've got music for completely free to sign up, and their music and sound effects are safe to use on YouTube, so you never have to worry
like that. They've just released a couple of new tools that makes adding music and sound effects to your videos 10 times simpler. So, if you're a actually really easy to start now. Now, the first tool, Assistant, helps you
find music and sound effects just by describing the vibe of your video. Another one is called Adapt, which actually automatically adjusts a track to fit the exact length of your video. So, if you find the perfect song, but
it's either too long or too short, Adapt actually fixes that automatically for you. And now they've introduced Studio, which can make the whole process even faster. You can upload your video, and Studio will quickly create a synced
sound track draft matching music and sound effects all to the different moments of your video automatically. You can then tweak it and use it in your own want to make your videos feel more professional and engaging, use the link
below to get a free trial of Epidemic Sound. And if you use code Dan at checkout, you'll also get 50% off your first two months. So, you're essentially getting two months for completely free. Give it a try. Then, the third key
signal is filling the recommendation gap. Now, this is all about the viewer journey. Some people can watch five, six, seven, even 10 long-form videos in a row in one session, but only if they keep enjoying what YouTube puts in front
of them. So, once someone clicks on a video, YouTube's job is simple: find the video they're most likely to watch and enjoy next. And this is called the recommendation gap, and it's basically the space between what a viewer has just
watched and what YouTube thinks they want to watch next. Now, if your video fills that gap, you give YouTube a reason to suggest it next to the bigger videos in your niche. So, how do you actually become the suggested video that
fills that gap? Well, look, the simple way to do this is by looking at the top-performing videos in your niche. Find the videos that are already pulling in tons of views, and then ask yourself, what would someone naturally want to
watch after that video? Because the key here is creating videos that naturally bounce off these videos. You don't want to create videos that could directly compete with them. So, go and find a successful video in your niche and look
for the gap. Is there a next step you could explain, or is there a point you could go even deeper on, or is there a beginner version of that video, or even perspective of that topic? And that's basically how you create a video that
fills the recommendation gap. You never want to compete directly, you want to create a video that sits side by side. And the more you do this, the easier it becomes for YouTube to understand where your videos belong and which bigger
videos they should appear next to. Then the fourth key signal is take advantage of what AI can't do. Look, as I mentioned earlier, YouTube is now full of AI slop, and viewers are starting to crave content that feels more real and
more human again. Now, most people don't want to sit and watch generic AI videos. So, this opens up a huge opportunity for you to really lean into the human connection side of things. So, you need to do what AI simply can't do. And the
to do what AI simply can't do. And the main things AI can't do yet are AI can't have real human presence. So, your face, your voice, your reactions, your energy, your body language, personality, lean into those things as much as possible.
Now, AI also can't build a real relationship with an audience. Now, viewers on YouTube will connect with people they recognize, trust, and feel like they know. And next, AI can't bring lived experience. So, if you make a
video where you are actually doing the workout or testing a product or visiting a place, this gives your viewers something that AI can't. That's why niches built around real experiences like travel, fitness, or documenting
things have a huge advantage here. And finally, AI can't have true taste or instinct. Your opinions, your judgment, and the way you see things and do things replace. So, just lean into those things. And that brings us on to the
final key signal number five, make the algorithm's job easier. If you want the algorithm to notice you, you need to make it easy to do so. So many creators confuse the algorithm before that video has even had a chance. And the more
YouTube has to guess, the faster your video will die. So, when you upload a video, YouTube is trying to work out three things really quickly. Who is this video for? What is the video about? And who is likely to click on it and enjoy
it? So, your job is to remove as much of the guesswork around those questions as possible. Now, an easy way to do this is before you even make the video, you should be able to clearly say, "This video is for, this video is about, and
this video should be shown to." Write those three sentences down before you even make the video. Then, I want you to use those answers to guide your titles, your thumbnails, your descriptions, tags, and hashtags. And when all of
those things line up, YouTube gets a much clearer signal about what your video is and who it should be shown to. Now, it might sound complicated and a bit long at first, but I promise you it's actually an incredibly simple step
to do and it's going to make all of those different things line up perfectly for you. Now, I know a lot of you struggle with things like titles and thumbnails, but unfortunately, these two things are the biggest growth drivers of
to learn how to master them. So, give this video watch here where I break down how to master human psychology and create thumbnails people can't resist clicking on. It's a great video. I'll see you there. Goodbye.