YouTube is refining its living-room strategy with a slew of TV-focused updates that bring together e-commerce, AI and quality-of-life tweaks. The company is introducing shoppable videos with scannable QR codes, launching AI-powered upscaling to bring lower-res uploads closer to full HD with 4K on the horizon and optimizing discovery and previews to better suit big-screen usage habits.
The drive comes as YouTube cements its standing on connected TVs. In April, YouTube accounted for 12.4 percent of combined TV viewing time across platforms, ahead of other established companies like Netflix, Disney and Paramount, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge. It is that audience, engaged — and monetized — that lurks behind these updates.
QR Codes Bring Living Room Shopping To YouTube
Shoppable QR codes will be overlaid into videos that contain the tags, allowing viewers to scan them with their phone to learn more about a product and jump directly to a checkout or product page. Shopping-related content was watched for 35 billion hours on YouTube in the last year, and channels earning six figures or more on TV screens increased by more than 45% in that time — indicating that commerce and CTV are already meeting at scale.
QR codes on TV are not new — Roku and Peacock have used them — but YouTube’s approach leans into creator-first merchandising. Videos can also connect directly to a creator’s storefront or brand site, and the company is testing what it called “shoppable moments,” where products are surfaced at particular times during a video — like when a chef plates a pan or when a gamer shows off a new headset. That precision counts when you are converting; it minimizes friction between intent and action.
Second-screen behavior is already ingrained in many people — viewers watch on TV while flipping through phones, say — so QR bridges that gap rather than disrupting long-form watching with heavy-handed overlays. And expect advertisers to keep a close eye on watch scan-through and conversion lift, because — especially as CTV dollars continue their chase for measurable outcomes. GroupM and other industry groups have pointed to the union of retail media and CTV as an area for growth, and YouTube’s move increases the pressure on that front.
AI Upscaling Aims For Clearer HD Playback And 4K
YouTube is adding a machine learning filter that can automatically upscale lower resolution uploads to full HD, and has plans to expand upscaling all the way up to 4K. Control remains in the hands of creators (original files are preserved!) and you can still opt to watch at the source resolution, a clever hedge for purists and bandwidth-constrained regions.
Upscaling is a delicate art. A machine learning model will, if done well, infer detail while removing noise and keeping edges sharp; if done poorly it will introduce halos, smear textures or twist faces. Netflix took heat for artifacts in older catalog titles like A Different World that seemed the result of clumsy AI work. YouTube will have to tune models by content type — quick sports and heavily compressed vlogs stress algorithms differently than animation — and possibly collaborate with codecs like AV1 that the platform already widely employs on supported TVs.
If it works, AI upscaling could start to bridge quality gaps across the enormous long tail of creator content, raising the floor for what a typical TV show or movie looks like without necessitating re-uploads.
That’s particularly important on large 4K panels where the difference between 720p or 1080p footage can look soft from a couch.
Discovery and File Quality on YouTube Get a Boost
Outside of shopping and AI, YouTube is also increasing its limit for thumbnail files from 2MB to 50MB in order to support true 4K thumbnails, offering creators more visual headroom without those aggressive compression artifacts. Thumbnails are a continued battleground for click-through rate and on TV, cleaner art can mean higher intent before someone hits play.
The company is also testing larger video uploads for a select group of creators to allow for better-quality encodes, alongside immersive previews that allow viewers to more fluidly flip between options — both moves that reflect what audiences have grown accustomed to in slicker premium streaming interfaces.
For discovery, meanwhile, contextual search now ranks a channel’s own videos higher when the viewer searches from that channel page to cut down cross-channel noise. It’s not a massive change, but one that matters: people who search for “tutorial” on their favorite maker’s page are now going to see more of that creator’s tutorials and fewer results from the wider platform.
Why It Matters For Creators And Advertisers
The QR rollout and timing of product placements inside videos could bring creators a new source of revenue without giving up watch time. Merch callouts that used to live in description boxes or pinned comments can be delivered as on-screen, moment-specific cues right when viewers care most.
For advertisers and brands, that combination of TV-scale reach and measurable shopping intent is the headline. CTV for years has dominated upper-funnel exposure; QR interactivity offers a bridge to mid- and lower-funnel outcomes without yanking viewers out of the living room S-curve. Anticipate testing creative that’s readable from ten feet away — high-contrast QR placement, clean product shots as well as a brief call to action.
The AI upscaling gambit is less one of flashy demos than bringing up the floor. For YouTube, if it can reliably turn fair uploads into sharp HD and above? It has people spend more of their time — longer sessions in other words — on its platform, and it narrows the quality gap between itself and studio-class streamers. The biggest risk relates to perception: all visible artifacts, particularly on faces and text overlays, will be glaringly apparent when displayed in high resolution.
The takeaway is a simple one: YouTube is weaving together commerce, quality and discovery into a TV-native offering. In a market where attention is scarce and measurable results are dearly bought, these updates nudge the platform further into the living room — and closer to when you make your purchase.
