50 Video Consumption Trends You Can’t Ignore In 2026

There are some pretty remarkable changes happening in the world of video.

Just in the last few years we've seen an explosion of AI-generated video, the continuing impact of the streaming revolution, and the massive growth of video use in the workplace. All of that is underpinned by a massive secular trend of rising video consumption in our daily lives.

In this post I'll give you a very high-level overview of what the video landscape looks like and back it with video statistics sourced from the highest quality surveys, reports, and research papers.

I'll cover everything from video consumption trends and demographics through to the use of AI video in the enterprise.

For each subtopic I've named and linked to my source to make it easy for you to do further research.

The growth of video consumption

While video consumption continues to grow and is increasingly dominating how we spend our personal time, the way we are consuming video is also changing rapidly.

The structural trend seems to be an increasing shift towards online shorter-form video and away from longer-form offline video, but there are still some exceptions to that narrative.

• The average internet user now spends more time consuming online video content (11h 39m per week) than watching traditional TV (10h 15m per week).
• Of that online video content consumption, the majority (6h 42m per week) is short-form video content (like Reels, TikTok, etc.) rather than long-form online video (4h 57m per week).
• Despite the narrative of streaming being all-dominating, linear TV is still the driver of the majority (57%) of global TV viewing time.
• This doesn't hold for the 16-24 year old demographic, however. For that age group streaming does account for the majority (51%) of viewing time.
• It seems that everyone is still sharing streaming accounts since 92% of internet users stream video content at least once a month, but only 32% are paying for a streaming subscription.
• Video now accounts for more than 75% of all global cellular data traffic, which is 3 times bigger than all the other categories of usage combined.
• The average person now spends twice the amount of time online as they spend watching TV.

Source: DataReportal, Digital 2025 Global Overview Report — This report is one of the most widely cited sources for trends in digital consumption. It uses data from sources like GWI, Statista, and direct network traffic data from ISPs to bring together a high-level overview of the digital behavior of more than 5.5 billion worldwide internet users.

Demographics breakdown of video viewers

There are some pretty surprising video consumption trends occurring when you dig into the demographic breakdowns.

I didn't expect TV to still dominate devices as the primary way we consume video content, although that consumption pattern skews heavily towards older generations.

Another trend that caught my eye was that YouTube appears to be rapidly transforming into a living room TV experience rather than a phone-based video habit.

• Across all ages (4 years and above), the average person watched 4 hours and 30 minutes per day of video at home, with 84% of that happening via a TV.
• There's a clear generational split between under-25s for whom only 22% of home viewing is broadcast content, whereas for over-75s it's 90%.
• The 16-24 year old age group watches 3 hours and 19 mins of in-home viewing per day, whereas those aged 75+ average 6 hours and 26 minutes.
• YouTube is the go-to destination for children when they switch on the TV, with 20% of them choosing YouTube as their first choice. This is more than any individual linear TV channel.
• For the 55+ age group, 83% of TV viewing sessions start with a linear TV channel, while only 4% will start with SVoD (subscription video on demand such as Netflix).
• People are increasingly watching YouTube on TV sets, with the share of in-home YouTube watched on a TV rising from 34% to 41% over the space of one year.
• The fastest growth in YouTube-on-TV video consumption is surprisingly coming from the 55+ age group, who increased their consumption by 97% over two years.
• SVoD use is plateauing in UK households, with the proportion of UK households using at least one streaming service remaining flat at 68%, which is the same level it was in 2021.

Source: Ofcom, Media Nations UK Report 2025 — This is an annual report that is published by the UK's communications regulator Ofcom. It combines Barb panel data based on the millions of viewing sessions with consumer surveys that are representative of the entire UK. While it's UK only, I think it gives us a good idea of what's happening in similar markets, including the US.

Video engagement trends & metrics

Videos aren't just being consumed for entertainment. They are increasingly the go-to medium for someone looking to learn more about a topic and are also widely used in marketing efforts.

Interactive videos are an interesting new twist on the format which looks set to grow, and webinars are an increasingly important content and event marketing tool.

• Educational videos are the most engaging video type across all video durations, with a 56% engagement rate for videos under 1 minute and a 37% engagement rate for videos in the 5-30 minutes bucket.
• The next most engaging video type is tutorials, which have a 54% engagement rate for videos under 1 minute and a 38% engagement rate for videos between 5-30 minutes long.
• As you might expect, shorter videos hold viewer attention better than longer videos across every video type and industry. Videos covering educational and software topics hold up best in terms of engagement for longer videos.
• Video creators increasingly cite social engagement as their primary video success metric, with 22% of video creators naming it their main goal in 2025 compared to 12% in 2024.
• When looking at interactive videos, the interactive element that drives the highest click-through rate is a lead generation form (19% CTR), which beats CTAs (15%) and annotations (2%).
• The best place to put a lead generation form in your interactive video is in the final 25% of your video (assuming a video duration of 60 mins or more), which will typically result in a 75% click-through rate.
• Webinars continue to be popular, with the average webinar seeing more than 40% of the initial registrants showing up for the live broadcast and more than half of those viewers keeping the tab open throughout the whole webinar.
• More than 33% of webinars are still generating plays up to 3 months after the live event.

Source: Wistia, State of Video Report 2026 — This report combines data from a survey of close to 1,000 marketing professionals with usage data from the Wistia platform, which hosts more than 13 million videos. It's a valuable primary source that provides video engagement benchmarks based on real viewing data.

Video in marketing

When it comes to video for business, marketing is the dominant use case (think social media and explainer videos).

Video is widely seen as a profitable marketing tool, and most companies are looking to scale their investment.

The cost of video production is still a major consideration.

• The vast majority of businesses (91%) are using video as a marketing tool.
• Video is seen as a profitable marketing tool, with 82% of marketers saying that video content has generated strong returns on investment.
• Most marketers see video as a marketing tool that can drive increased sales (82%) and generate new leads (85%).
• Given all this success, it makes sense that 92% of marketers plan to invest the same amount or more into video creation in 2026.
• There's a lack of consensus when it comes to cost expectations, with 30% of marketers saying that video is getting cheaper, 32% saying that costs are stable, and 38% saying that costs are increasing.
• There's clear growth in the use of AI tools, with 63% of marketers using AI to create and edit video content (an increase of 51% from the previous year).
• A clear majority (63%) of consumers say that they would prefer to learn about a product from short-form video content rather than a text article (12%), an infographic (7%), or a sales call (5%).
• Most marketing video content is being created in-house (59%) rather than via external video production agencies (10%), although it's common to use a mixture of in-house and agency (32%).
• The most common type of marketing videos being created is videos for social media (69%), with the second most common being explainer videos (68%).

Source: Wyzowl, State of Video Marketing 2026 — An annual survey of 266 marketing professionals covering the use of video in marketing efforts.

AI video production

AI is becoming an integral part of how we make the video content we consume on a daily basis.

While its use is only just starting to penetrate the entertainment sphere, its use in the enterprise is much more advanced.

The most common use cases for AI video in business include employee training, internal communications, customer education, and marketing.

• The global market for AI video was estimated to be worth $3.86bn in 2024, with projections reaching $42.29bn by 2033 (which would imply a 32.2% CAGR).
• The latest 2025 estimate for the AI video market is $4.55bn, with North America accounting for 34.8% of that and Asia-Pacific being the fastest growing region.
• Half (50%) of the revenue in the AI video market is being generated by cloud-based platforms.
• The fastest growing segments of the AI video market are text-to-video, script-to-avatar, and automated video production.
• The AI avatar market is valued at $0.8bn in 2025 and is expected to reach a value of $5.93bn in 2032 (which would imply a CAGR of 33.1%)

Source: Grand View Research, AI Video Market Report 2025 — Grand View is a market research company and this report contains AI video market size estimates and segmentation, as well as regional breakdowns and growth forecasts.

Video in employee training

As I mentioned above, employee training is one of the most prominent use cases of AI video in the enterprise.

Video is widely seen by L&D professionals as a more engaging medium that drives better information retention compared to text. AI video lets these L&D teams create, update, and localize training content faster and cheaper than they ever could with traditional video production.

• A majority (52%) of L&D professionals are already using AI to create training videos.
• Another 31% of L&D professionals are testing out AI video or running pilot programs.
• A firm minority (only 17%) aren't engaging with AI video at all.
• Most (88%) L&D teams see faster video production as the main source of value driven by AI today.

Source: Synthesia, AI in Learning and Development Report 2026 — based on a survey of 421 L&D professionals worldwide.