YouTube wants to place ads at the ‘most exciting’ moments of its videos

At its own Brandcast 2025 event, YouTube presented a new way of inserting advertisements in particularly exciting places, which was recapped in this official YouTube blog post.

The new feature, called “Peak Points,” uses Gemini AI to analyze videos to find the most important, meaningful, and engaging moments that viewers are watching. Content creators are then able to place their ads at these exact moments to maximize viewership and engagement.

Google / Youtube

In one example, YouTube shows a marriage proposal, which it considered to be a “peak” moment in the video. The advertisement would play directly after that moment. The concept is clear: ads should play at high-viewership and high-engagement moments to maximize impact.

“Peak points” are only peak for creators

This new way to wring every last dollar out of monetized videos is, of course, great news for content creators who want more cash in their pockets. But it’s less exciting for viewers. One point of contention is that an ad break directly after an exciting or engaging moment diminishes the experience of that moment.

An alternative to that could be for creators to place ads directly before these peak moments, perhaps as a way to spark curiosity and anticipation in the viewer, amping up interest in what’s about to happen. Then again, that could also backfire by increasing viewer frustration.

YouTube hasn’t yet announced an official date when Peak Points will be made available to content creators.

Alongside Peak Points, YouTube also wants to bring so-called “edge-to-edge” ads on connected TVs (when watching YouTube on your large-screen living room TV, for example) as well as shopping ads where viewers can browse and engage with products on TVs.