He Has 85 Million Subscribers. He Says AI Can’t Replace This.

He rose to fame with YouTube movies like Easy methods to Survive a Grenade Blast, which has 100 million views, and Are you able to swim in Jello?, which has 224 million views.

Now Mark Rober, a former NASA-engineer-turned-science-YouTuber with 85.7 million subscribers, says that there’s a easy solution to stand out from the group as AI-generated content material infiltrates social media.

In a brand new interview with Enterprise Insider, Rober mentioned the answer to competing towards AI slop, or low-quality AI posts, is to exit into the true world and do one thing noteworthy.

“Do you wish to see a simulation of somebody dunking a basketball with a sick trick, or do you wish to see somebody really do it?” he mentioned. “The truth that you realize it’s actual is what makes it loopy.”

Rober believes that high quality units his channel aside.

“No less than for some time, I feel I’ve a moat on the YouTube channel,” he mentioned. He believes that his real-world experiments and recognizable human character give his channel a bonus over AI-generated content material — a minimum of, for now.

Rober mentioned his YouTube movies generated about $17 million in income final 12 months, which is roughly what it price to provide them. He additionally makes cash by his firm CrunchLabs, which sells merchandise like maker kits that introduce younger individuals to science and engineering.

Rober famous that his enterprise now employs greater than 200 individuals. Its mission facilities on inspiring curiosity and studying.

“Curiosity is so essential on this new age of AI,” Rober mentioned. “It means you simply have a lifetime of studying.”

The professionals and cons of AI for content material creation 

AI introduces a conundrum for content material creators. The instruments that make movies simpler to create are additionally making it more durable for particular person channels to face out. For some creators, AI means extra development. Others say it may trigger their work to get misplaced within the crowd.

One widespread use case of AI is to assist creators introduce present movies to audiences who converse completely different languages. For instance, translation startup Linguana builds and manages native YouTube channels with AI dubbing. It consists of translated thumbnails and descriptions, offering creators with a solution to broaden internationally with out doing all the interpretation work themselves.

Companies like Linguana can enable creators to generate extra revenue from content material they’ve already created. In April 2025, Linguana instructed Enterprise Insider that it was producing 10,000 video translations every month for a whole lot of YouTubers. The corporate takes half the income generated by its partnerships fairly than charging upfront.

Nevertheless, simpler manufacturing ushers in a aggressive problem. Rober mentioned that when extra individuals create comparable content material, technical execution alone might turn into much less beneficial. Because of this channels constructed round nameless narration or animation may face explicit challenges as rivals produce content material quicker and extra cheaply.

He rose to fame with YouTube movies like Easy methods to Survive a Grenade Blast, which has 100 million views, and Are you able to swim in Jello?, which has 224 million views.

Now Mark Rober, a former NASA-engineer-turned-science-YouTuber with 85.7 million subscribers, says that there’s a easy solution to stand out from the group as AI-generated content material infiltrates social media.

In a brand new interview with Enterprise Insider, Rober mentioned the answer to competing towards AI slop, or low-quality AI posts, is to exit into the true world and do one thing noteworthy.