Thumbnail Troubles

July 02, 2025

AI Thumbnails Are Here And People Are Pushing Back

If you didn’t catch the news over the weekend, Jimmy unveiled a feature on Viewstats that lets users generate YouTube thumbnails using AI. As you might’ve guessed, it got a lot of backlash on social media from both fans and creators. Two days later, he released a statement saying the feature would be taken down and replaced with a tab that lets you hire a thumbnail artist instead.

I’ve been seeing both sides of the argument in the comments. Half the people think Jimmy should be supporting artists, and the other half think AI is inevitable, so why wouldn’t we accept it and move on? The reality is that AI isn’t slowing down any time soon. In this case, Jimmy took down the tool for making AI thumbnails, and I saw someone else build the same thing a day later and post it on Twitter for free.

Someone Else Will Build the Product Anyway

Even though Jimmy pulled down his AI thumbnail tool, the next day there were already tons of other AI tools people were using to make thumbnails. I even saw a developer on Twitter launch an AI thumbnail designer within a day of Jimmy’s announcement. It feels like this is the direction we’re headed. So if I’m a thumbnail designer, I’m probably leaning into AI to work more efficiently and take on way more creators who need thumbnails.

There’s been a lot of widespread hate around the new AI tools that keep coming out, and rightfully so. They are taking jobs away from artists in the space. I think we’re going to see a lot of pushback on many of these tools, but there’s also a big opportunity here. If you’re a thumbnail designer, chances are you already work with more than one creator. Some of the best designers work with ten or more. What I think AI will enable them to do is scale that up, allowing them to work with hundreds of creators by using their artistic skills to significantly increase their output. In turn, I think this could make it possible for more creators to hire top thumbnail designers.

Traditional Thumbnails Will Increase In Value

Back in 2023, I wrote about how YouTube was shifting away from overproduced, Beastification of content toward less edited and more authentic videos. We're now about to see the same thing happen with AI-generated thumbnails. A lot of creators will continue using AI to make their thumbnails, but I anticipate that some of the biggest creators on the platform will start using simple screenshots from their videos instead. We’ve already seen this with creators like Outdoor Boys and Sam Sulek.

The ultimate keep it simple from Sam Sulek

Given that YouTube has been at the forefront of building creator tools on the platform, will they work with Google Gemini to roll out an AI-generated thumbnail feature? My guess is almost 100 percent yes. At some point, I think creators will be able to use Gemini directly within their dashboards to generate thumbnails.

The Big Takeaway

AI is innovating at an alarming rate, and it feels like every day I wake up there’s a new tool or use case. Artists have been the most outspoken about their frustration with these tools, but they can’t deny that AI will only get better over time. How the creator economy and the platforms adopt AI is still unclear, but I anticipate that most of them will lean in heavily over the next year. Some creators will adapt to these new tools, while others will draw a hard line and choose never to create art with AI. I fully respect that, and I believe there will be a big place for that kind of creativity on the internet in the future.

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