YouTube Targets Early 2027 for AV2 Video Streaming on the Web

YouTube intends to start streaming video using the AV2 codec on its web platform as early as 2027, according to an update shared this week by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) and reported by TechPowerUp and Android Authority.

AV2 is the royalty-free successor to AV1. AOMedia describes the new codec as offering roughly 30% better compression, while Android Authority cited figures of about 25% to 32% greater efficiency than AV1. In practical terms, that allows either higher-quality video at the same bitrate or comparable quality using less bandwidth. The codec also introduces support for multi-stream and multi-view video, higher frame rates, and improved HDR.

The early 2027 timeline for the web rollout was confirmed by Des Keane, Engineering Director at YouTube. On the browser side, Jim Bankoski, VP of Engineering for Google Chrome, said AV2 playback has been demonstrated in Chrome, though Google has not specified which Chrome version will receive the feature or whether it will be enabled by default. According to TechPowerUp, that demonstration took place at CES 2026, where Google streamed AV2 videos from YouTube to a gaming laptop at 1080p and 24 FPS using a custom Chrome build with the reference decoder.