YouTube Competitor Analysis: See What Your Rivals' Viewers Actually Watch

See what your competitors' viewers actually watch. Try TinyFish free. New accounts start with $8 in Wallet funds.

TL;DR

A quick YouTube competitor analysis tells you which topics your rivals' audience actually clicks on, so you can stop guessing what to film next. You don't need a paid tool or an afternoon of scrolling. With the TinyFish app connected, ChatGPT or Claude opens a competitor's channel in a real browser, lists their 12 newest videos with views and upload dates, and tells you which topics are pulling the most views.

Run it on two or three competitors, and you'll have the outline for your next three videos.

A quick disclosure: I work at TinyFish, which gives ChatGPT and Claude live web access, including a browser agent that can open real web pages for you.

What you need

• ChatGPT or Claude. Ask in plain English.
• The TinyFish app. Install it once by following the plugin docs. TinyAgent, the TinyFish browser agent, then opens YouTube in a real cloud browser and reads the channel page for you.
• A competitor's channel. The channel name, handle (like @examplebakery) or link all work. No YouTube login needed: this only reads public pages.

How to run a YouTube competitor analysis in one prompt

Copy this prompt. Swap in the competitor.

Use TinyFish to open the YouTube channel [competitor], list its 12 newest videos with title, link, views and upload date, and tell me which topics get the most views.

Here's a filled-in example. Say you run Harbor Coffee Roasters, an invented small roaster, and a rival roaster, Bright Bean Co. (also invented), has been posting weekly:

Use TinyFish to open the YouTube channel @brightbeanco, list its 12 newest videos with title, link, views and upload date, and tell me which topics get the most views.

Why this prompt works:

• "12 newest videos." That's about three months of a weekly channel. It's recent enough to reflect what the audience wants now, and short enough to come back complete.
• "Title, link, views and upload date." The link lets you check any video in one click. The upload date matters because a video posted yesterday hasn't had time to collect views yet.
• "Which topics get the most views." This is the part you'd otherwise do in a spreadsheet: grouping videos by subject and seeing which subjects win.

A second prompt: turn it into your plan

Once you have the list, ask a follow-up in the same chat:

Based on those 12 videos, suggest 3 videos I should make next for my own channel. For each, give a working title, the competitor video it responds to, and what I could do differently.

ChatGPT already has the list in front of it, so the ideas are grounded in what's actually getting watched, not in generic "content ideas."

Watch it run in ChatGPT

Here is the tested prompt running in ChatGPT with the TinyFish app, sped up. You can see TinyFish open the site in a live browser, then ChatGPT write up the answer.

What you get back

A table of the 12 newest videos with title, link, views and upload date, followed by a short read on which topics are doing best and which aren't.

Example output (invented business):

(Links and the other six rows left out here for space.)

Topics with the most views: troubleshooting ("why does my coffee taste...") and comparisons. Lowest: company news and team videos. The holiday blend video is only a week old, so it's too early to judge.

For a small business, that's the useful insight: the audience shows up to solve a problem, not to hear about the brand. Your next three videos could answer the problems they're searching for, in your own voice.

Tips and when it doesn't work

• Views are a snapshot. View counts keep moving, and YouTube may pause or adjust counts while it checks they're genuine (YouTube Help). Compare videos of a similar age, and rerun the check every month or so rather than treating one result as fixed.
• Ads can lift a view count. YouTube counts views from video ads in the public view count (YouTube Help). If one video has far more views than everything else, the competitor may have paid to promote it. Read it as "worth a look," not proof the topic is a hit.
• Stick to the newest 12. Asking for a channel's whole back catalogue can cut off partway. If you want older videos too, ask in separate batches.
• It reads public data only. It sees what any visitor sees: titles, views and dates. It can't see a competitor's watch time, revenue or private analytics.
• Use the exact handle. If a channel name is common, give the @handle or the channel link so the agent opens the right one.

On cost: new accounts start with $8 in Wallet funds, no card needed. Agent runs are billed per step, at $0.016 per agent step.

Doing the same research on ads? See how to look up competitors' Facebook ads.

Want to see this live? We're running it at TinyFish Small Business Week, a free 45-minute live session on Thu Nov 19, 11 AM ET. Save your seat, and bring the job you want off your plate.

Find out what your competitors' audience watches, in one prompt. Start free on TinyFish.