It’s Tuesday and a new super-sized streaming service could be on the way as Paramount makes plans to merge HBO Max with Paramount+.

GAME ON

The origin story: On Twitch and YouTube, Big Tech’s top AI rivals are engaged in an unexpected type of competition. Bots like ChatGPT, Grok, and Llama are the players on a channel called Turing Games, where they compete in social deduction games like Mafia.

The creators behind Turing Games (aka Morpheus and Unyx) have picked up millions of views by bringing AI bots into a world of betrayal, deception, and hidden roles. The duo kicked off their YouTube channel last year by commentating on a chess match between Grok and ChatGPT. That video is one answer to a question that has informed much of Turing Games’ work: what happens when two AIs talk to each other?

The games: To hunt down other potential outcomes, Morpheus and Unyx created a program where they could put more than a dozen AIs in a room together and observe how they interact with one another through gameplay.

Those interactions are more humanlike than you might expect. At the end of the day, AI chatbots are trained on material created by people—meaning they’re often just as panicky, anxious, and lizard-brained as we are. Turing Games demonstrates just how easy it is for AIs to fall victim to mob mentality, faulty logic, and overanalysis.

In the first Mafia game published on the channel, for instance, DeepSeek accidentally “hallucinated” a previous gameplay session by referring to a nonexistent “yesterday.” The other AIs immediately jumped on that mistake and voted DeepSeek out, even though it was an innocent villager that had simply encountered a technical glitch.

To play up those reality show-style conflicts, Morpheus and Unyx sit their AI contestants down on therapy couches after games have wrapped to chat about the outcomes. That kind of drama is just as compelling as human-led competition series like The Traitors—if not more so.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Gospel Stats’ Weekly Brand Reports often seem to revolve around a theme, with STEM video essays and “this vs. that” challenges frequently pervading the public consciousness. This week, however, the sponsored rankings feature a veritable hodgepodge of sponsored content.

🥇 #1. MrBeast Gaming x Feastables: 4 Pros vs 1000 Players (15.4M views)
The latest Minecraft challenge on MrBeast’s secondary channel pits pros SandwichLord_, SpeedSilver, Evbo_, and Greninja against 1,000 normal players for a chance at $25,000. MrBeast Gaming has repeatedly featured this same format with the same sponsor (Jimmy Donaldson’s own Feastables candy brand), leaving us wondering if and when viewers will grow weary of the formula. But at 15 million views and counting, it doesn’t appear that time will be soon.

🥈 #2. Dana Berez x Kohl’s: Must-Have Affordable Vacation Outfits From Kohl’s 🔆 #kohlsfinds #kohlspartner @kohls (15M views)
Dana Berez’s clothing haul-style Shorts ad is reminiscent of Chinese shopping livestreams, where hosts churn through hundreds of items per hour by showing them for a few seconds while ordering information flashes on-screen. With Whatnot doubling down on creator partnerships and social shopping overall taking off in the West, we expect to see more of these blink-and-you’ll-miss-it showcases on YouTube and beyond.

🎰 #2,330. SYD & MACKY X HOVERAir: We tried credit card backpacking (Monumental Loop in southern New Mexico) (43.5K views)
Outdoor enthusiasts Syd and Macky aren’t afraid to mix adventure with some creature comforts. For their latest outing, the duo set out on a 130-mile “credit card bikepacking” trip, buying food and supplies day-to-day and staying in cozy hotel room each night. That journey is supported by camera drone company HOVERAir, which Syd and Macky say they “cannot recommend…enough.”

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

GLOBAL TOP 50 🌎

The creator: Creators across YouTube Shorts are always on the hunt for ways to train viewers’ attention spans, and Andrea Galvez seems to have cracked the code. The Spanish creator’s videos range from couples content to challenges, but one particular format has helped her earn tens of millions of views: memory games.

Encouraging viewers to practice pattern recognition has paid off for Galvez, who soared to #43 in our latest Global Top 50 ranking by collecting 408.2 million weekly YouTube views.

The campaign: Galvez’s rise is notable, but the topic of pattern recognition gets even more intriguing when YouTube itself enters the picture. Since 2022, the platform has sought to teach young viewers how to identify misinformation through its Hit Pause initiative. In 2024, it expanded that campaign to cover deceptive videos generated by AI programs.

Now, YouTube seems to be ramping up activity on the official Hit Pause channel, with Shorts becoming a key vehicle for the platform’s anti-misinformation messaging. By publishing pithy videos that encourage viewers to slow down and pay close attention to the videos they’re watching, YouTube is turning millions of viewers into misinformation watchdogs. The result: Hit Pause just pulled in the highest weekly viewership it’s had all year.

WATCH THIS 👀

The Lonely Monkey: If you haven’t already shed a tear for Punch this month, Avocado Animation’s latest video might do the trick.

The baby macaque captured hearts across social media after clips showed him clutching a stuffed monkey for comfort at Ichikawa City Zoo. Punch—who was reportedly abandoned by his parents and rescued by the zoo—has since begun bonding with other, real-life monkeys, but Avocado Animation’s tear-jerking depiction of his tough childhood is still a heart-wrenching watch.

(Of course, if you need a pick-me-up after tuning in, there’s always SNL’s take on the situation.)

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.