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Content Strategist & Chartered Accountant (CA)
If you are a YouTube creator, your videos may be some of your most valuable work.
YouTube gives creators a direct setting to decide whether third-party AI companies can use eligible public videos to train their AI models. Importantly, this permission is off by default.
If you want to check your setting, here is the quickest way.
If you are reviewing AI-training controls across several platforms, Sparkonomy’s free Creator AI Consent Audit can also show you what controls are available and where their limits are.
You can watch the short walkthrough below or follow the steps right after it.
Prefer watching? The video above shows where to find YouTube’s third-party AI training setting and how to turn it off.
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, click:
Settings
Inside Settings, select:
Channel
Then open:
Advanced settings
Scroll down until you see:
Third-party training
You will find an option that says:
Allow third-party companies to train AI models using my channel content
If the box is checked, uncheck it.
Then click:
Save
That tells YouTube that third-party AI companies are not permitted through this setting to use your eligible YouTube content for AI model training.
You do not need to do anything.
YouTube says third-party training is turned off by default.
You only need to change the setting if you previously enabled it and now want to withdraw that permission.
YouTube also says changes can take up to seven days to appear in its publicly accessible training-permission interface.
This setting applies to third-party companies that want permission to train AI models using eligible YouTube videos.
If you turn it on, you can allow:
If you leave it off, YouTube says you are not granting that third-party training permission. YouTube also states that its Terms of Service prohibit unauthorized downloading and scraping.
This setting should therefore not be treated as a guarantee that no unauthorized scraper anywhere on the internet could ever access public content. It controls the permission YouTube provides through its own third-party training system.
YouTube is only one platform. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, Substack, TikTok, X, and others all handle AI-training controls differently.
Sparkonomy’s free Creator AI Consent Audit helps creators check where AI-training settings are available, what to switch off, and what those controls still cannot protect.
Part of Sparkonomy Open Standards — free, simple tools built to help Creators manage and grow their Creator business.
No email or personal details required.
Note: This guide is based on YouTube’s settings available as of September 2026. Platform settings and menu paths may change over time.
I help Creators turn their hobby into a real business. I am a Chartered Accountant (CA) with 12 years of experience, and at Sparkonomy I write simple guides on money, systems, and how AI can complement your work by taking care of boring admin, so you can create more while building a career that lasts.
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