Alliance for Open Media Releases AV2 Codec, Advancing Next-Generation Open Video Coding

Wakefield, Mass. – June 9, 2026 - The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) today announced the release of the AV2 specification. AOMedia is a standards organization focused on bringing next-generation media experiences to more people, faster, and whose membership includes leading global innovators from across the media ecosystem. Developed under AOMedia’s royalty-free patent policy, AV2 is the next-generation video compression standard designed to meet the evolving demands of global video delivery.

Building on the success and broad adoption of the Emmy Award-winning AV1 codec, AV2 delivers significant advances in video compression efficiency and flexibility. This increased efficiency enables higher-quality visual experiences at the same bitrate or significant bandwidth savings for equivalent quality, making it ideal for a wide range of applications from traditional streaming to emerging media.

“AV2 was developed through a rigorous, collaborative process involving some of the world's leading technology companies,” said Adrian Grange and Andrey Norkin, Co-Chairs of AOMedia’s Video Codec Working Group. “Proposed tools were evaluated for implementation complexity and tested under common test conditions to ensure that not only is the specification high-performing but also well-optimized for efficient hardware implementation.”

Beyond improved efficiency gains, AV2 was designed to support a wide range of use cases, including traditional streaming workloads. The specification enables scalable bitstreams and supports multi-stream and multi-view scenarios, including stereoscopic video, multiple camera angles, and composite video experiences delivered within a single bitstream, as well as more traditional VOD and video conferencing workflows. These capabilities enable more efficient bandwidth usage, improving viewing experiences across a range of network conditions, and support advanced applications across streaming, video conferencing, and emerging media.

“The publication of the AV2 specification reflects years of collaborative and innovative work by the AOMedia community and provides a strong foundation for continued innovation in video delivery,” said Dr. Pierre-Anthony Lemieux, Executive Director of AOMedia. “This publication is a first essential step towards the broad adoption of AV2: efforts are already underway to integrate AV2 with popular streaming protocols and to define new profiles of AV2 targeting professional applications.”

Looking Ahead: The AV2 Ecosystem and Extensions

With the specification finalized, AOMedia is shifting focus toward ecosystem integration and future extensions:

• Container Formats: An AV2 binding specification for ISO BMFF is planned for release.
• Software and Tools: While libavm remains the reference software, the dav2d decoder project is making steady progress toward a high-performance software implementation.
• Conformance and Testing: Commercial conformance stream packages from Allegro and HDR Nova are already available. AOMedia is also planning to produce example test streams representative of real-world "in-the-wild" scenarios.
• Professional Profiles: The Video Codec Working Group has already initiated a project for a new 12-bit profile to support professional cinema workflows and high-dynamic-range (HDR) applications.

The AV2 specification and related technical resources are available to the public at av2.aomedia.org.

About the Alliance for Open Media

Launched in 2015, the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) was formed to define and develop technologies to address marketplace demand for open standards for media compression and delivery. Board-level, Founding Members include Amazon, Apple, Cisco, Google, Huawei, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics and Tencent. AOMedia’s open-source, royalty-free video codec AV1 is a significant milestone in the ability to deliver a next-generation video format that is interoperable, open, optimized for internet delivery and scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth. Visit www.aomedia.org or follow AOMedia on LinkedIn.

Press contact:
AOMedia
Lillian Guinther
Aomediamarcom@virtualinc.com