- At the creator event “Made on YouTube 2026,” YouTube announced multiple new features for creators, live streamers, and viewers.
- There are over 30 new features in total, covering a wide range of areas from streamlining production and enhancing the viewing experience to expanding monetization.
- For viewers, features include customized feeds to tailor the home screen to their mood, “Ask YouTube” for finding recommendations and product tags through conversational search, and watching “Shorts series” on TVs.
On Wednesday, September 23, 2026 (local time), Google’s video service YouTube announced a multitude of new features for creators, live streamers, and viewers at its annual creator event, “Made on YouTube 2026.”
The newly announced features total more than 30, covering a broad spectrum ranging from production efficiency and enhanced viewing experiences to expanded monetization. For viewers, updates include customized feeds to adapt the home screen to their mood, “Ask YouTube” for discovering recommendations and product tags via conversation, and watching “Shorts series” on television. Additionally, for music and podcasts, updates such as “Ask Music” to help find tracks and “Podcast Lineup” to deliver weekly podcast summaries were announced.
“Shorts series”
One of the headline features for creators is the “Shorts series.”
Creators will be able to bundle short videos into series formats from the desktop version of YouTube Shorts and set custom thumbnails for them. Viewers browsing the YouTube Shorts feed will see a “Watch series” button, allowing them to navigate to a dedicated show feed and watch episodes in sequential order.
“Shorts series” supports mobile, desktop, and TV, and rollouts have already begun globally.
Expansion of Community Post Display
On the Android and iOS versions of the YouTube app, the visibility of community posts will expand, with image posts and carousel posts now appearing directly in the YouTube Shorts feed.
Furthermore, the YouTube app for smart TVs will soon allow users to view images posted to communities directly on channel pages. This will begin rolling out to select markets over the coming months.
Conversational Video Editing in “YouTube” and “YouTube Create”
Conversational video editing features will be added to both the YouTube and YouTube Create apps.
By selecting the photos or videos you want to use and entering a prompt, an initial draft will be automatically generated. You can then refine it through chat-based suggestions, such as cutting silent parts, reordering clips, and adding captions. Of course, you can switch to manual editing at any time.
The conversational video editing feature is scheduled for a global rollout starting in early 2027 for the Android and iOS versions of YouTube and YouTube Create.
“Ask Studio”
YouTube Studio will introduce an AI assistant named “Ask Studio.”
“Ask Studio” allows creators to receive feedback on titles, structures, scripts, and pacing for unpublished videos, as well as offering suggestions to refresh thumbnails of older videos to reach new audiences. Additionally, new “Insights” and “Research” features for channel analytics, A/B testing for videos themselves, and the ability to set up to three thumbnails per video to display the optimal one for each viewer are planned.
These features will roll out progressively across mobile and desktop through 2027.
Pilot of “Personalized Comment Moderation”
For comment management, YouTube is piloting an opt-in feature called “Personalized comment moderation.” It learns from patterns in comments that creators have manually deleted in the past and automatically filters similar comments into the “Held for review” tab.
“Personalized comment moderation” will also display 7-day summaries and is scheduled to begin testing for the desktop version of YouTube Studio later in 2026.
Voice Detection Support for “Likeness Detection”
“Likeness detection,” which protects individuals’ appearances from unauthorized AI-generated synthetic content, will expand to include voice detection later this year.
Combined with facial detection, this will enable the highly accurate detection of content that infringes upon publicity rights. Alongside this, users will be able to configure, check, and manage “Likeness detection” settings directly from the Android and iOS YouTube apps.
New “YouTube Live” Features
New features for YouTube Live include a pilot for real-time auto-dubbing, launching in English and Spanish in early 2027, as well as testing “Live showdowns,” which allow creators to engage in split-screen collaborative battles triggered by viewer Super Chats (“投げ銭”).
Furthermore, “Watch With”—a feature that lets live streamers watch other videos together with their audience—will be expanded from live streams to all eligible videos.
“YouTube Creator Partnerships Program”
The YouTube Creator Partnerships Program, a brand-deal matching platform available in 20 countries including Japan, will now allow creators to utilize “Ask Studio” to easily draft proposals and respond to sponsorship inquiries.
Additionally, creators will be able to share sample video links with partners with a single click, making it quicker to request pre-publication reviews.
Expansion of “YouTube Shopping”
The affiliate program “YouTube Shopping” will expand to 35 markets by the end of 2026.
In addition, a partnership with Amazon will begin for YouTube Shopping in India and Brazil. Furthermore, automatic localization of product tags will be rolled out so creators can earn commissions even when purchases are made by international viewers, and “Affiliate Campaigns” will be introduced, allowing brands to invite creators with fixed fees and special commission rates.
Moreover, “Ask YouTube,” available across mobile, desktop, and TV, will allow viewers to discover products tagged in videos through a conversational experience.
Source: Google (https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/youtube/made-on-youtube-updates-2026/)