What Is AVIF? Why It Became the Default Image Format in 2026 (opens in new tab)

In this article: What AVIF actually is, who built it, what problem it solves Why the same image is ~50% smaller than JPEG and ~20% smaller than WebP at equivalent quality When AVIF is the right call — and when it isn't 2026 browser support: is it finally safe to use everywhere? Let me start with one number. The same 1920×1080 photo, encoded at the quality where the human eye can't tell them apart: JPEG at q75: 263 KB WebP at q75: 168 KB AVIF at q50: 102 KB Three formats. Same image. Same perc...