BREAKING: YouTube Just Announced Huge Changes

YouTube just announced some major changes that will affect how to get views on YouTube going forward, how you actually make money, and some new opportunities, as well as the future of the platform. But there's a lot of announcements that have creators seriously concerned, and we need to talk about those. Now, we're going to be covering the 12 biggest updates, but this is coming from the recent event called Maiden YouTube that is hosted in New York City, and CEO Neil Mohan opened up with a big number. More than 3,000 updates to YouTube have actually happened since the start of the year.

They covered about 35 on stage, and most of those updates aren't actually going to change your channel, but some of them are going to change it a lot. One of the biggest ones is the fact that soon you'll be able to test different versions of your actual video. However, some creators are raising some serious concerns about this that we need to discuss. Now, one of these changes is already inside of your YouTube Studio, and you probably don't know it yet. And if you're not using it, then you're leaving views on the table. And then one could give you a new way to get paid from videos that you've already made.

So, I went through the keynote, YouTube's blog, the reporting from journalists, all these different sources, and I'm compressing about 10 hours of research into the 12 biggest updates for you. So, here's the need-to-know information right here, right now.

Let's first talk about what's going to affect you if you're a business owner or a creator that wants to get more views.

And the first one is A/B video testing. Now, this is crazy because for a while now, you've been able to split test or A/B test titles and thumbnails. So, instead of just uploading a video with one title, one thumbnail, you can now upload a combination or package a combination of three different thumbnails that YouTube would test to see which one gets the most watch time and gets the most clicks combined, right? Well, now rolling out beginning in 2027 for select creators, YouTube is going to start letting creators test up to three cuts of their video. And so for years, YouTube has let you test the packaging of your video now with titles and thumbnails, but now you can actually test the video itself. So here's the facts. You can test up to three cuts of the same video. The versions can differ like a different intro, a different hook, a different structure. And reportedly, YouTube will distribute the cuts to different viewers and then judge the performance by watch time. And so, according to reporting from The Verge following the YouTube event, they said you can pick the winner yourself, and if you don't, YouTube will automatically make the winning version permanent after seven days. They also said that versions can't be dramatically different. And that's where some of the skepticism of this has come in. Like, wait a minute, could I just upload entirely different videos? I guess the big idea is that in a simple sense, and what I think is actually relevant for a lot of creators is you might think about how you open your video. You're like, man, this hook could be really powerful, but so could this one. You just shoot two different hooks. All of the rest of the edit is the same. You export two different video files and you drop both of those into test. Well, those are minor differences. What would be crazy is if one version of your video was 10 minutes and one was two hours, and it would seem according to the reporting from The Verge that they can't be dramatically different. Now, the published press reports that this is starting next year. And a question that kind of came out is, is this going to be for both shorts and long form? TechCrunch said that for sure this is for shorts. And so once this gets updated on YouTube's help center page, we'll know both. But the way it was presented was full long form videos. The presentation itself on stage was showing cut A and cut B of a long form video. And here's kind of some screenshots of what it could look like. Imagine having your main video, cut B, cut C, and then your main video getting 38.8% of the watch time share. Furthermore, if you look on screen here, and if you're on audio, you might want to come to the video version of this episode, the comparison of where viewer retention is going up or going down is something that you could see after the fact in an advanced analytics view. And so, this is a very fascinating update. And this is where there's a lot of buzz. Now, you know, for smaller channels, or you could say channels that don't get a lot of impressions, this might not be that big of a deal. Here's why. You just don't have enough data. Same thing for thumbnail split testing. You could use the feature, upload three thumbnails, but if you're not getting enough impressions, it becomes inconclusive.

But if you do have enough traffic and so medium to larger sized channels, just like title split testing, just like thumbnail split testing, video split testing is a very interesting opportunity. Now, MKBHD already commented on this, one of the largest creators on the platform, and he said, "The more I think about it, the less I like it." And asking questions like, "Will viewers know they're watching a video that's being tested? When you read the comments, how do you know which version the person watched? And I suppose that's if there was distinctly different content in the video. Maybe somebody comments about a particular part and then that comment's not even relevant to the final winning video that lives on YouTube forever. If there are timestamps in the video, are they all messed up? Do you have to do different sets of timestamps? Let me know if you're feeling stressed by this update.

In one sense, you're like, is it an opportunity or a burden? I'm not sure.

And then how long after publishing can the creator keep testing? Right now, we can test thumbnails in perpetuity. You could keep running new thumbnail tests.

You could keep changing the title. If your video continues to get impressions and traffic on YouTube, you can continue to optimize it, and at times that actually might really raise the performance of the video because you just keep testing different versions of the video. These are some real unanswered questions, and YouTube hasn't explained how that's all going to work yet. So that's number one of 12. Let's hit number two. And this is broken down into multiple parts. There's some new thumbnail tools. Now, we already know that thumbnails are very important because better packaging, topic, title, thumbnail means more views on your videos. So thumbnail A/B testing that's been live. You can test up to three thumbnails or titles or combinations. The winner is chosen by watch time share. And they announced that creators have run more than 40 million tests since it launched in 2024. So the update was how embraced this feature has been. But the big announcement was what's called dynamic thumbnails. And you could see here if dynamic thumbnails is turned on, it's matching thumbnails to viewer preferences. Here's the big idea. This isn't just thumbnail split testing. This is the idea that different thumbnails would be shown to different audiences.

Now, if you watch Netflix, you've probably noticed that back when The Office was on Netflix, you might see one thumbnail that has a picture of Dwight Schrute in it, another one that has Pam and Jim in it, and you saw all these different variations. What's fascinating is it's maybe not just the one thumbnail if you were to click on The Office or Parks and Rec or your favorite show, but Netflix could be serving you different thumbnails because it actually gets your attention and you click on it based on what's seen in that thumbnail. So the idea of dynamic thumbnails is that AI and an algorithm is actually showing different thumbnails to different audiences, increasing the overall performance of the e...

going to start let letting creators test up to three cuts of their video. And so for years, YouTube has let you test the packaging of your video now with titles and thumbnails, but now you can actually test the video itself. So here's the

facts. You can test up to three cuts of the same video. the versions can differ like a different intro, a different hook, a different structure. And reportedly, YouTube will distribute the cuts to different viewers and then judge the performance by watch time. And so,

um, according to reporting from the Verge following the YouTube event, they said you can pick the winner yourself and if you don't, YouTube will automatically make the winning version permanent after 7 days. They also said that versions can't be dramatically

different. And that's where some of the skepticism of this has come in. Like, wait a minute, could I just upload entirely different videos? I guess the big idea is that in a simple sense, and what I think is actually relevant for a

lot of creators is you might think about how you open your video. You're like, man, this hook could be really powerful, but so could this one. You just shoot two different hooks. All of the rest of the edit is the same. you export two

different video files and you drop both of those into test. Well, those are minor differences. What would be crazy is if like one version of your video was 10 minutes and one was 2 hours and it would seem according to the reporting

from the Verge that you know they can't be dramatically different. Now, the published press reports that this is starting next year. And a question that kind of came out is, is this going to be for both shorts and long form? Techrunch

said that for sure this is for shorts. And so once this gets updated on YouTube's help center page, we'll know both. But the way it was presented was full long form videos. The presentation itself on stage um was showing cut A and

cut B of a long form video. And here's kind of some screenshots of what it could look like. Imagine having your main video cut B, cut C, and then your main video getting 38.8% of the watchtime share. Furthermore, if

you look on screen here, and if you're on audio, you might want to come to the video version of uh this episode, the comparison of where viewer retention is going up or going down is something that you could see after the fact in an

advanced analytics view. And so, this is a very fascinating update. And this is where there's a lot of buzz. Now, you know, for smaller channels, or you could say channels that don't get a lot of impressions, this might not be that big

of a deal. Here's why. Is you just don't have enough data. Same thing for thumbnail split testing. You could use the feature, upload three thumbnails, but if you're not getting enough impressions, it becomes inconclusive.

But if you do have enough traffic and so medium to larger sized channels, just like title split testing, just like thumbnail split testing, video split testing is a very interesting opportunity. Now, MKBHD already commented on this, one of the largest

creators on the platform, and he said, "The more I think about it, the less I like it." And asking questions like, "Will viewers know they're watching a video that's being tested? when you read the comments, how do you know which

version the PE person watched? And I suppose that's if there was distinctly different content in the video. Maybe somebody comments about a particular part and then that comment's not even relevant to the final winning video that lives on YouTube forever. If there's

timestamps in the video, are they all messed up? Do you have to do different sets of timestamps? Let me know if you're feeling stressed by this update.

In one sense, you're like, is it an opportunity or a burden? I'm not sure.

And then how long after publishing can the creator keep testing? Right now, we can test thumbnails in perpetuity. You could keep running new thumbnail tests.

You could keep changing the title. If your video continues to get impressions and traffic on YouTube, you can continue to optimize it and at times that actually might really raise the performance of the video because you just keep testing different versions of

the video. These are some real unanswered questions and YouTube hasn't explained how that's all going to work yet. So that's number one of 12. Let's hit number two. And this is broken down into multiple parts. There's some new

thumbnail tools. Now we already know that thumbnails are very important because better packaging topic title thumbnail means more views on your videos. So thumbnail AB testing that's been live. You can test up to three thumbnails or titles or combinations.

The winner is chosen by watchtime share. And they announced that creators have run more than 40 million tests since it launched in 2024. So the update was how embraced this feature has been. But the big announcement was what's called

dynamic thumbnails. And you could see here it if dynamic thumbnails is turned on, it's matching thumbnails to viewer preferences. Here's the big idea. This isn't just thumbnail split testing. This is the idea that different thumbnails would be shown to different audiences.

Now, if you watch Netflix, you've probably noticed that back when The Office was on Netflix, you you might see one thumbnail that has a picture of Dwight Shroo in it, another one that has Pam and Jim in it, and you saw all these

different variations. What's fascinating is it's maybe not just the one thumbnail if you were to click on The Office or Parks and Wreck or your favorite show, but Netflix could be serving you different thumbnails because it actually gets your attention and you click on it

based on what's seen in that thumbnail. So the idea of dynamic thumbnails is that AI an algorithm is actually showing different thumbnails to different audiences increasing the overall performance of the entire video. Now, the status is that's coming soon. The

rollout timing is not specified. You upload three thumbnails and YouTube shows different ones to different types of viewers. There's no single winner.

All three stay active. So, I got a lot of questions about this, but it also could just be that if you were like some individuals have been doing already split testing thumbnails, there's just never a winner. They just all three work

for you. And so, it's the difference is it's not asking which thumbnail is best for everyone. That's what AB testing is.

Dynamic thumbnails asks which thumbnail is best for this particular viewer. And you can maybe imagine that a younger audience might be more prone to crazy emotion or more bright colors or a different YouTube style that matches that demographic where maybe an older,

more mature audience might want a different type of thumbnail story developing. Now, the next one is automatic thumbnail swap. And they're saying this is coming out later in 2026.

So, YouTube Studio, check this out, can proactively identify underperforming thumbnails and help refresh or test replacements. So, YouTube Studio, if you haven't started playing with it, I encourage you to start using it. This is the icon that's, you know, built in.

Sometimes it's underneath videos, sometimes it's in the upper right hand corner. If you log into the back end of your YouTube studio, you can see what's called Ask Studio. That's what I want you to play with is talking to YouTube

about your channel. And you might say, "How are my analytics? What video is doing well?" And there's layers deep that you can go into ask Studio. Well, the big idea here was if you were to ask ask Studio to optimize your video

thumbnails and then it would say something like, "Here are three videos with growing views that could perform even better with new thumbnails." And then the AI is saying, "You want me to refresh those and choose a different um

thumbnail for those?" And for a while now, YouTube is generating we'll even generate thumbnails for you. There's some mixed results with that, but all of these things are improving. You can also add in thumbnails. So, the idea is that

we're moving into a world where you could say, "Hey, I want to optimize videos in my old library." And it's like, "Hey, these are a few videos that are underperforming. want me to run some tests on them and run some different

thumbnails on them. Now, as we continue to go through these updates, I feel like this is all exciting. It's all a picture of the future. It definitely shows us where YouTube is going. And in some cases, I think some of these features

could be overrated, overwhelming, and you know, I'm curious your take. So, let me know in the uh comment section if you uh have any feelings about that because you know how well is it going to work and what kind of issues will will there

be. But that's a big announcement. Now, I just touched on it, but thumbnail generation is rolling out and is also already available to some individuals where As Studio can generate long form video thumbnails based on the video's themes

and your channel style and then lets you refine the colors and the layout conversationally, meaning promptbased. And I suppose you could use audio, right? Same idea, prompting. So, you're talking to YouTube. Okay, can you make this thumbnail based on this video? Okay, can

you change this? Can you change the colors? And we're going to get to an announcement later about that where that's coming to video editing. But thumbnail generation through Ask Studio through the back end of your channel.

The good news is as you're learning these new features, this should make and could make content creation more accessible and more easy. You're uploading a video, it's helping you package it based on AI, based on the tools that they're giving creators. All

right, those were just thumbnail distinctions and now we're going into number three of the 12 need to know updates, which is pre-publish feedback. And so the idea here is you can upload a draft of your video. That's what you already do. So you upload a

video to uh YouTube and you're in the back end optimizing it. Well, before you make the video public, you could start talking to Ask Studio about the video and it could give you feedback on, oh, your your script is a little off here,

the hook sucks, and here's some title ideas, and here's some optimization ideas where you're conversationally talking about it in the background. So, what you see on screen is you have a draft of your video, and then it says

feedback. Refine your video with actionable feedback based on your channel data. You click the little button, get feedback. You click the ask studio icon, get suggestions for your titles and thumbnails for the content itself. And so this is um on desktop now

and it's coming soon to mobile. So this is a feature you could start playing with right now. Let me know if that's available on your back end. And so what you do is you select a draft, private or

unlisted video, and then ask studio can give you feedback on the title, structure, script, pacing, and other creative decisions before you publish.

And I suppose if something major was happening, and this has happened to me a lot, you're like, shoot, I need to do another export, another cut, you know, you're watching back one of your videos, you're like, that title was wrong. Oops,

I left in that repetitive line. And it can identify those things though before you publish. And so ask um studio is available on desktop web for eligible creators and this will be coming soon to iPhone and Android. Number four, the AI

agent for your back catalog. Now this is my language and this has been announced but the rollout timing has not been specified. So ask studio is becoming more proactive. Instead of only answering questions, it can help you identify opportunities and work through

different creator tasks. So, why does this matter? Your library of videos is your biggest asset, your back catalog.

Now, if you're just starting YouTube, at the end of this, I'll go through some actionable steps if you want to start or grow on YouTube right now. But one of the big ideas is building a library of videos on YouTube is one of the greatest

media assets you could build in the modern world as a brand, as a business owner, as a personal brand, as anybody with a message. And so what can happen though as you build your library is keeping hundreds of older videos

optimized is difficult to do by hand. And so YouTube wants AI, I'm calling it an AI agent, you know, essentially what it is, to help you optimize your back catalog. So it can review your older videos and suggest fresh thumbnails so

they reach new audiences. We just talked about that. It could build brand pitches using your channel channel's audience data. And this will be coming st soon to the mobile studio app. Um, and again the thumbnail swap idea was there. Now, by

the way, this is already mostly happening, but how sophisticated is this going to get? Like how sophisticated it the big theme on stage we heard at the keynote was ask studio the AI interaction that's kind of coaching you

and giving you feedback for your channel and helping you analyze data. This has existed for a while now. It's just getting better and more powered up.

Number five, um, insights and the new research tab. Okay, so right now in your YouTube studio, your analytics are probably called analytics.

And the announcement appears to be that they're changing the name from analytics to insights. That's one thing. They're also going to change how it looks, trying to organize the data for you in better and more intuitive ways to give

you feedback so you can make more intelligent decisions. Now, one very specific update is that the research tab is changing. It's apparently going to still be called the research tab, but it's going to be a little bit different.

Currently, the research tab has what people are looking for and it gives you keyword phrases and you can heart those, save those for later. You know, by the way, if some of this stuff you're like, I didn't even know half of this stuff

was in my backend studio, like that's there right now. Like you already have this. Um, and so it also will say breakout videos, but the new research tab is changing and it's going to be it would seem basically outlier-based. Now,

we'll define what that means in a second, but it's going to be focusing on other videos watched by your viewers, other videos trending on the platform based on outlier score. And it looks like keyword phrases are going to be

retired. So currently this is in the testing phase but I believe it's rolling out soon. And so a couple facts anal analytics is being renamed to insights.

The trends tab becomes research which shows videos from other channels that broke out. Now this matters because topic selection is one of the biggest levers of channel growth. I've been really saying lately that if you're really good at selecting topics on

YouTube, you can be bad at everything else. Now, of course, you want to improve at everything else, but topic is so important. Like, if you're good at selecting topics, you could be worse at everything else. And of course, just

talk about the right thing at the right time with the right title and you could get a lot more views than you've been currently getting. So, by identifying essentially what an outlier is, and this is not a new thing. There's all kinds of

softwares that do this for you, right? um platforms like Vid IQ and what they're doing is integrating like the outlier thinking right into YouTube itself. And what does outlier mean? It means videos that outperform a channel's typical videos. And the reason

that's fascinating is because if a channel has a thousand subscribers and typically gets a 100red views per video, but they post a video that gets 10,000 views, that is a massive outlier. And if you see that, a lot of times it's because of

the topic or the way it was said or talking about the right thing at the right time and you're like, "Oh, I should talk about that, too." Or or or or like that packaging, that idea. Oh, I could not copy it, but do my version of

that as well. So an outlier multiple like this is a 5x 5x better than the channel's norm normal uh views 10x better than the channel's normal views that um is going to start being integrated right into the new research

tab that is rolling out. Another thing that in general better insights give us is the ability to spot patterns. If you want to be a successful content creator on YouTube, pattern recognition is one of the most important skill sets to

develop. And so looking at data, looking at videos, looking at outliers, looking at your own content and being able to synthesize that information and spot patterns that will give you an edge. And so this tool is interesting for that. So

then you can also filter videos based on what your own viewers watched. Now, this has already been tested with a limited group since July. And if you if you currently see analytics and trends, then you don't have it yet. And actually,

disclaimer, um I've noticed in my back end, the research tab apparently on one of our channels just went away. It was there before. Now, I just see trends. At one point, I had both. And going forward, I believe my understanding is

analytics becomes insights, trends becomes research. If you're as confused as me, I'm doing my best to just synthesize this information for you. Um, and side note, disclaimer alert, saved keywords if you were using those. Remember, we looked at

this where you could heart your your keywords and the topics people were looking for is going to go away. So, if you want to export those for future video ideas, you have, you have three months to download them as a CSV.

And um again, this is not the same as the old research tab which came out in 2022.

Then that showed what people searched for. The new one shows which videos broke out. Number six, and if you are grateful for the level of research, time, and brain damage that went into me just trying to consume all this

information. Um can you share this video and hit the like button? I I appreciate it. Number six, ask YouTube um AI answers. So, what does this mean? Um, a couple things. Videos that answer questions clearly get found and videos

that ramble get skipped. That's the big idea. And what they're saying is that ask YouTube has some updates to it. Now, there's a couple layers to this. The first one is the ask button on a video.

This has existed for a while, but you don't always see it. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. It's live now on select videos. They're testing it. They continue to test it. Now, this has already existed, but let's just define

what this one is. You can use ask. Like, again, if you're listening on audio, you're like, what's he talking about? Watch the YouTube version because I'm sharing screen. But what you see is there's the like button, the dislike

button, the share button, and there's an ask button. The same idea of kind of ask studio, ask YouTube, and this sort of star icon they have is what's showing you what to click. Okay. When you click that, you

can ask questions about the video. Now, this works on phone, computer, and TV. And YouTube demonstrated that it can search comments, understand what's on screen, give you timestamps. You could say, "Can you give me a summary of this

video? Is there any pictures in this video?" Now, already 140 million people have used Ask YouTube in June, which was up from 20 million people in December. So, that's a massive adoption.

um of this feature. Now, my understanding is that 2.7 billion um maybe monthly active users use YouTube.

So, it's still kind of a small fraction when you put these things in perspective, but it takes time for these features to be adopted and and rolled out. Okay, that's the idea that you can click ask, interact with the video,

point me to a place, does the person have any demonstration of the camera, is there any photos in there, etc. Okay, but this is what's different is ask in search. So, YouTube began rolling out conversational ask YouTube search to

mobile in the US on August 12th alongside desktop and TV. It's still limited to a US English rollout and it's gradually expanding. Now, we need to dive into what this is because it's pretty wild. So, ask YouTube. You ask it

a question and then you get an AI answer with clips from many different creators starting right at the moment of the question. So, this is fascinating. You might say something like, "I need a new camera that I could easily take around

the city when I'm out with friends. What vibe should I consider?" YouTube could pull a window together of lots of different videos, but also you don't have to like click the video and like, "Hey guys, welcome back." It could take

you to the moments of the video that start talking about that answer. So if you see on screen ask YouTube, you ask about the camera on it starts building this live demo here started showing then that it pulls together sort of like a

different experiential screen and kind of turns it into some text choosing your camera vibe, compact, retro, and versatile. It gives you some different videos that you could click on with answers to that question. But then you could ask a follow-up question. And you

might say, "Well, I want one that I can take around the city or in the video, you know, is there uh does it have a a flash on it? Which out of this video of maybe somebody reviewing multiple

cameras, which one did she ultimately rate the highest?" And so you're starting with the prompt. AI is responding. It's aggregating videos.

You're now going into videos and the search is staying with you. The conversation is staying with you. And then you keep talking about even that specific video. Clickable product tags could show up on screen and um it's quite an interesting

evolution. Now, what's fascinating is for creators, um, this probably raises some yellow and red flags because on the one hand, this is an opportunity for discovery, which is cool because if you're making good, optimized, clear videos, and that's why one of my big ideas at the

top was if you're just kind of rambling and disorganized, then AI is not going to know how to index you or or recommend you, let alone humans probably won't want to follow that content. content. But if you answer

questions clearly and you organize your content well, then you can start getting indexed by AI and recommended by AI. So there's some new discovery opportunities here. I think though that secondly, um there might be some red flags where

you might people just watch a snippet of your video, but then they end up on somebody else's video. And if you make money, let's say with affiliate marketing, in the picture on screen, there's actually a clickable shoppable link, which I imagine would probably go

to this creator's affiliate program, which is cool. But then I wonder what if YouTube cut out the creator. What if they, you know, showed you a clip of this video and a clip of this video and then the creator's like, "Oh, that's the

the viewer is like, that's so awesome. Okay, I think that's the camera I want." And YouTube's like, "Well, here's your link." Because it didn't happen on the creator's video. What happened in the AI search? Who gets the affiliate

commission? Interesting questions that we could ask as this is rolling out. Number seven, custom feeds. Now, some of these important announcements, and there's a lot more that have to do with the viewer experience, but as a creator or an intelligent entrepreneur that's

making content, you want to know how the platform's working so it can inform your strategy. And so one of the biggest updates about what viewers can do and plus you're also I'm sure a viewer and consumer of YouTube like me to learn to

grow as well as for entertainment. You can now make custom feeds. And so pretty simple but the idea is that you can basically build a feed beyond your homepage. You might create something and the example here is late night ASMR and

rain soundscapes. It's a feed for this particular experience of your day that you like. And maybe you get in front of your TV, you want to go to a custom feed. I'm assuming you'll be able to do this on TV, but definitely on desktop,

what you're doing is you're going to say new custom feed. And then you describe it. Here's another one. Maybe you have a commute. So you you type in witty podcast for my 30 minute commute. And so this is rolling out in the fall of 2026.

viewers type a prompt like home remodeling tips and they get a saved homepage that keeps updating. So, you're sort of just selecting the theme of the custom topic or category that you want, but then it's now continuing to update

for you. So, you can always check in with that hobby, with that interest. And so, viewers can build highly specific interest feeds that may increase the value of making content on a clear topic. Now, this is US only on web,

mobile, and TV. No word on other countries yet. Next short series. This is rolling out globally now and this is different than a playlist. Series has been a big topic on YouTube in general.

The idea you could do a show. The idea of this is it is kind of more like a Netflix experience more for those that are going to do episodic content and entertainment. However, I think there's some relevance for business creators

here. But the idea is that you could do it with shorts as well. So you can organize your shorts into a series with seasons and episodes, custom thumbnails, so they play backtoback. And part of this is because micro drama watch time

rose 50% year-over-year and TV viewers of micro dramas rose 90%. This is the idea of people making kind of entertainment episodic based short digestible vertical videos and people are in love with them. So, from a content creator, entertainment standpoint, this is

fascinating for building out a whole series on shorts. However, a business owner could turn a topic into a native short series. In fact, I think that's probably incredibly underrated. Not clips cut from long videos, but like intentional vertical videos. I actually

did that recently. It's called the 21-day YouTube reset. I fell off on day 13. Um, and so I plan on finishing it, but I was uploading those as YouTube shorts on my channel, the Think Media Podcast, which side note, if you haven't

heard about that, I'll link that up in the show notes. And uh, we post weekly podcast to help you grow and get views on YouTube, interview um, experts and uh, a must listen to podcasts in your rotation or on YouTube. But I uploaded

on that channel a series of shorts that were natively built, not clips from videos, intentional crafted shorts. And I'll teach on that at another time. In fact, that's a good reason to subscribe to that channel. I have tons of insights

how I use a related video feature, how many views it led to, different things that were accomplished by it, all kinds of unpredictable discoveries that I I couldn't have really predicted without doing it. So, I do think that um

embracing shorts, embracing native shorts, meaning custom videos, not ju I think that sometimes it's overrated to just cut clips out of videos like like loweffort garbage shorts. That's overrated. I think it's underrated to sit down and craft intentional vertical

content. And I think there's a lot to learn. Entrepreneurs could learn a lot from what's happening with the micro dramas. Number nine, brand deals.

YouTube talked a lot about some business tools, meaning how you can make more money. And that includes YouTube shopping, and one of the big things was they're bringing more brand deals to creators. And so brand deals are one of

the biggest revenue sources for some creators. Um, YouTube isn't just allowing brand deals anymore. It's building a marketplace. There's a few announcements here. 9A, YouTube creator partnerships, which is already live in 20 countries. This helps brands find you

and it lets brands see your channel data. So this is brand deals coming to the back end of your YouTube channel. 9B one-click brand access and paid boosts.

This is already live. You can share a one-click code so a brand can see your videos performance and pay to boost it. Now, on our Think Media channel, we have been doing brand deals for years. And this has already

been happening where sometimes we'll do a brand deal and the brand will pay for ads on the video so it gets more views.

Um, you know, it's performing on its own organically. They want to add more views to it. So, I don't know how different this is than that, but this is just easier. It's like making it simple for you to say, "Here's the link brand." And

they go, "Oh, cool. We we we see how this video is doing. Oh, yeah. We'd like to put money behind that video as well." And so boosts are not new. A brand boosting your video that was sponsored, but one click code makes it easier is my

takeaway. Now 9C, ask studio pitch help. Um, currently you could ask studio. Remember we talked about that earlier.

AI talking to your back end of YouTube about your channel in a chat prompt like chat GBT. It's the chat GBPT of YouTube.

It's called Ask Studio. And this will help you answer brand briefs, brand pitches, and tailor your media kit to each brand, which again, side note, I think the power of that is it's integrated into the data of your

channel. That actually is the power of it. I'm sure it's probably powered by Gemini, but a lot of the LLMs, I I would hope you're using AI to help you write brand emails or brand pitches or help you

build your media kits. But the idea is that YouTube themselves, which are they're the best position to do it because they have access to everything, all the demographics, your channel, all the data, you can export that stuff, but

that takes that's manual. So, but bottom line is the AI behind YouTube is going to help you craft, pitch brands, build media kits. Um, some of those features are already there. Now number 9b is swappable sponsor segments aka dynamic

brand segments. Now you might remember that doesn't this already exist or didn't it already get announced and what happened with it? What you could see on screen would be the idea that you go into your video, you select not just the

mid rolls because you can go manually select the mid rolls of where your ads play, but then you you click brand segments and you actually insert different ads, right? Different video clips that cut in. Hey, before we get

back to the video, this video is brought to you by Think Media Mastermind. We actually are hosting a two-day event in Vegas. If you want to come hang out and get really geeky by uh g geeky about YouTube and and also uh you know talk

about building a business around your channel, think media mastermind.com. I'll put that in the description as well. I mean, you know, shameless plug, but me thinking like, so that obviously that was just me organically saying that, but if that was like an insertable

ad, what's crazy, right, is that you could insert a sponsor segment in up to 20 long form videos at once. You go back to old videos and insert a a sponsor segment. It actually gets crazier. You could change them based on region and

have different call to action buttons. So, okay, you make one video and then you insert different sponsor segments, but then you insert even different sponsor segments that play in the US versus Canada. And I mean, it starts getting kind of complex. I think you

might see a theme. A lot of these features speak to how YouTube is like the atcale media platform for media companies or creators that have built like enough help and support to even do this level of granular detail.

But it's a pretty big deal no matter who you are because older videos could potentially carry new sponsor segments over time. And the question is when does this really roll out? It's already being tested. It was first announced on Made

on YouTube 2025 last year. And basically YouTube said it would turn videos into living assets that testing would start, which it did. Now a full year later, it's just still in testing. But they said it's continuing to test and evolve.

And and when is it public? We're not sure. But what's new is that you can insert a sponsor segment into up to 20 long form videos at once, target by region, and build in add a shelf with a call to

action button. So you can imagine for like, you know, maybe somebody's talking about different makeup products that are distributed different ways in in different regions. Below that video is a shelf of the products. There's a click, there's a call to action button that

pops up when the sponsor segment is there. And then the sponsor performance data shows up in YouTube Studio and could be shared by brands. Now, Digi Day called this potentially the most disruptive development in the creator economy for 2026 because it

could change how sponsorships are priced and let channels sell their back library and their back catalog like a TV network sells ad time. So rather than your brand spot just being burned in forever and getting stale, you could update it.

Well, you might be hearing about this for the first time or you're like, "Yeah, well, when the heck do we get it?" Here's the big idea. It is, this is radical. And while we don't know the full roll out time and while it could be

frustrating to be like, "Well, when do I get it as a smaller channel or this kind of, you know, when does this fully roll out?" The thing I think we need to know is like the future money-making opportunities on

YouTube are abundant. this is the time to invest in learning YouTube and building your brand. You might have said, "Well, I wish I started 10 years ago and I could have more momentum. It feels like it's too late

now." Well, the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. And the second best time to plant a tree is today. So, start building your library so that you have a back catalog to sponsor because this development is potentially the most

disruptive development in the creator economy. I don't think that's an underrated statement or an overrated statement. All right. And then also agency incentives, YouTube is investing, this is a lot, hundreds of millions of dollars to reward agencies for bringing

deals to creators. So as sometimes, as much as it seems that sometimes YouTube is against small channels and against creators, YouTube needs creators to survive as a platform and sell more advertising. You, you know, follow the money. And even if that's it's not that

they're not generous, but even if it's self-interest that they make more money for their shareholders, they still need creators to flourish.

So, they're creating new tools. The semantic algorithm is what we're saying, calling it is allowing new channels to get discovered. They're investing in brand deals. Take advantage of this opportunity. Don't allow cynicism to paralyze you. Go on offense and let's

build your freaking channel together. All right. All right, number 10, shopping in Amazon affiliates. This was not new. Um, it's live now. It is a big deal cuz for a while Google and Amazon weren't the best of friends and it looks

like they're healing their relationship. This also expanded to India and Brazil. So that you can not just do YouTube shopping, which has been around forever, but also now with Amazon products and Amazon affiliates, which is what the world I'm guessing is it the world's

biggest affiliate program. I mean Amazon is it the biggest e-commerce store, right? So it's a big integration. you could tag products and videos and earn commissions. Um, and one of their biggest things was just how well it's doing, how well it's growing, how much

sales volume is happening. It is live in the US since summer, but it's coming to India and Brazil in the coming weeks.

Um, tags can now switch to local stores for international viewers since September 23rd. Um, affiliate campaigns let lets brands offer exclusive commission rates and bonuses. That's new.

So, this is uh a few new things to that and something that I've got a lot of questions about and we'll cover that in a separate episode and separate video.

Number 11, AI comment moderation. So, this is testing and already there's some AI integration in the back end of your YouTube studio, but the big idea here is an opt-in filter that learns what you delete, hide, or allow and then

starts doing it for you. cleans comments and builds trust to save time. You opt into it. So, it means you do give it permission to do this. It'll be coming to your live chat as well and no data

was given about it. Now, number 12, and then I've got kind of three big takeaways for you and a few summaries of my thoughts of what this means so you can maximize your results on YouTube going forward. They announced

conversational editing and this is for YouTube create the app and YouTube shorts. And so it basically so far seems to be for shorts only, but I think this is also a prediction and a picture of where things are going. You

might not enjoy editing. You might not want to do it. The idea was that editing can just happen as a conversation. You upload all your raw raw footage or your clips. And so you're like, "All right, can you take all of these clips of me

and then find a a hip-hop song and have whenever I change my outfit, have it hit the beat of the outfit change. Thanks so much." And let the video edit for you.

And then you say, "Okay, that was great. Can you change this one thing?" So it's prompt based editing. The example on screen says reorder, trim, and more. So this is coming early 2027. You're just describing your edit in plain words like

find my best takes or trim with pauses or sync the cuts to the music. AI builds the first draft and you can refine it by editing by hand afterwards if you want. So, what's really cool about this is it would save

you time. I think what's fascinating is just how much AI is going to continue to influence editing. I think what's also overrated as a video editor myself is that this is going to like eventually do everything for you and be super smart.

Maybe, but I still think that editing, good editing is is human, but there AI tools just save you so much time. Having been an editor since 2003, like what are we talking about, Sean?

How old are you? um you know the the the sheer amount of hours I would spend doing repetitive tasks is being radically cut down by AI. So this is cool the fact that you could do car conversational editing with YouTube

shorts but I think it's also a picture of where things are going. This is obviously editing is one of the biggest production barriers and um it edits with you basically not for you and that'll be happening and it was built on Gemini

Omni which is interesting and that's kind of the back end of uh what's happening there and so obviously you've got Google you've got YouTube Gemini you've got the AI the whole thing is massively being YouTube as a platform is

being changed by AI and I don't mean the conversation around AI slop and final outputs of AI video. I think the bright side of AI, which would be the AI tools that help us save time, make smarter decisions, edit our videos. Um, there's

a couple honorable mentions like you'll be able to go live together. Um, ask Studio Mobile coming, some members only community stuff, uh, likeness protection. Not only will YouTube be able to detect your voice, but it'll also be able to detect your face. and

you can manage if anybody's copying you or cloning you, live autodubbing, um, and a few other things like that.

Now, I want to give you some of my big takeaways, but I did mention earlier that, um, that we are hosting an event in Vegas. If you want to come and talk about YouTube and talk about how specifically to build your YouTube

business, especially if you're an established creator, um, we're hosting a two-day event coming soon in Las Vegas.

I'll put a link in the description, but you could go to think mediamastermind.com, get around other ambitious creators, ironsharpens iron. It's going to be a fun event. So, that is think mediamind.com if you want details about this. Here's my takeaways. Here's the

big picture. Studio is moving from telling you what happened to helping you decide what to do next. Yeah. So, analytics and insights oftentimes tell us about what happened in the past. Some of these new announcements are going to give us

better vision for the future. Outliers have existed on a lot of different third-party softwares. YouTube is bringing those straight into the platform. That can very much give you strategic insights on what to do next.

And you could be one video away. We say that all the time. You're one video away from going viral. You're one video away from breaking out. You're one video away from getting that next client for your business. So, it's cool that the YouTube

Studio on the back end is going to help you make better decisions. Uh YouTube is also my kind of thinking here is a tool for every step of the creator journey.

So if you think about it, they want to help you research, help you come up with ideas, help you create your video with even video editing, help you package your video, what title, help you come up with thumbnails, write titles, split

test those titles, you know, testing, AB testing of those titles and those videos, help the video get distributed, build community, and we didn't even cover some of the community features and give you ways to monetize monetize. So, while it's debatable or evolving that

some of these steps are maybe good or bad, like how how good is it at those steps and I mentioned this earlier, but I think in some cases these announcements are very excited. In some cases, they're overrated. In some cases,

it for a huge media company that has a lot of staff that can split test a bunch of different thumbnails, that's kind of helpful. I think for your average creator, you know, complexity is the enemy of execution.

If you get overwhelmed with too many things, you're just not even making videos anymore. You're using too much AI, your brain is in a noodle, you know, not helpful. So, all that to say is that YouTube is just really aiming to build

tools for every step of the creator journey. That's what this looks like and that's where this is going. Now, maybe one of the biggest takeaways is there may be soon no single version of YouTube. What do I mean? People are

making a custom homepage personalized to them. People are being shown customized thumbnails personalized to them. People are getting different versions of the video. I don't know. Personalized for them. So, personalization is one of the biggest words of 2026 and I think 2027.

Personalized algorithms. YouTube. And side note, there already wasn't just one version of YouTube. Like, is is YouTube's homepage one billboard of all the popular videos? No. YouTube has millions and billions of homepages. The homepage populates and pulls content

based on your watch history, based on your preferences, based on your activities. There's not just one homepage, there's billions of them.

What's weird is now now the the long tale of how much personalization is again a little bit stressful but different audiences might see different thumbnails right YouTube is personalizing the entire experience now what's interesting though is let's talk

about opportunity we've been talking about what we we've coined kind of like the semantic algorithm which just means meaning and it's the fact that YouTube understands viewers better than ever it understands content content better than ever. So, it now matches specific videos

with specific people better than ever. So, this is an opportunity for the business owner to get in front of their ideal clients. This is an opportunity for the small and new channel to create intelligent content to be matched with a

very specific audience because of AI, meaning AI to can scan your content and understand your content and know what the script says and even know if there's a cat walking in the back of your video.

It understands your video. YouTube is also understanding viewer behavior. Every piece of data you give YouTube when you make a custom feed and what you click on and what you're satisfied by, that's an opportunity. So, YouTube feels crowded and it is. There's a lot of

content creators. There's also a lot of people consuming content and the algorithm is continuing to improve to match the right content with the right people. So that is an invitation for you to invest in your content strategy, make

intelligent videos and tap into the opportunity that exists right now. Now there was also some really important announcements from stage um some statistics and data and here's a couple to know and these were updates because these just happened you know this is

breaking um YouTube is the number one streaming uh has is number one in streaming watch time in the US for three years straight according to Neielson. So YouTube's a leading streamer still true.

YouTube is the number one podcast platform for viewers in the US. 600 million people plus watch live content every day on YouTube. 300 million people plus engage with posts every day on YouTube. And posts used to be called the

community tab. Those are the photos you can upload. Those are the texts you upload. Those are the polls that you post. One of the announcements they also made is that posts are coming to television. and television is already

such a major aspect of YouTube, but it's also getting more integrated in mobile. So, people being able to watch YouTube on their TV, but look at the comments and now engage with the comments or have a two-screen experience. I know I use my

Apple remote and I am watching a video and I'm opening up the comments through YouTube just with my Apple remote. Well, posts are coming to YouTube as well and posts are a big deal. 300 million people engage with posts every single day. Now,

these are massive. The creator economy and the math behind the creator economy, $60 billion plus was added to the US GDP in 2025 because of YouTube. 540,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the US.

Like, that doesn't mean that many people work at YouTube. It means how many people are making full-time equivalent living from YouTube just in the US. And the inter international opportunity is real as well. So the size and growth of the

money going into the creator economy is is massive. The key is then saying how can you position yourself, build your skills so you could tap into a piece of that pie for your ambitions on YouTube.

60% growth in brand deal shorts in 2025. So massive brand deals flowing into YouTube and sponsoring short form content as as well as long form content.

and ask YouTube's blowing up, YouTube shopping's blowing up. Here's my three big takeaways on this long episode, but I think uh we covered a lot and uh let's let's talk about it. Here we go. Number one, three big takeaways for creators of

business owners who want to win on YouTube in 2027. Master the tools, the platform, and the craft. Master the tools, the platform, and the craft.

That's not a new message from us, but I want to call you back to the pursuit of mastery, the pursuit of excellence. I want to remind you that lifelong leaders are lifelong learners. And so new tools are coming out. Take a breath.

You might need a break after this episode. You know, buy yourself a nice lunch. Okay? You deserve a third cup of coffee today. All right? Like do that because I mean I was like stressed listening to this. I was like, how am I

going to explain all this in less than an hour and we're on track to do that.

So um master the tools, take some time to learn these, play with these because those who keep learning the tools are are going to dominate. Master the platform, keep learning the platform and then also master the craft. And I think

this is an interesting concept is tools can only go so far. Tools are not enough. You need tools and taste.

Like if we get too analytical about all this stuff and all this freaking split testing and whatnot that makes me want to pull my hair out. It's like this is also like take a breath. Like this is art y'all. Like let's slow down a little

bit. And I think that we could get very polarized about this. Like all or nothing, split thinking, black and white thinking. No, I mean it's tools and taste. These tools are cool. Learn the tools. Pace yourself though, but also

develop that taste. Be a human. Inject that authenticity. Cultivate your taste. cultivate your unique voice. And so, master the tools, the platform, and the craft. Any craftsman masters the tools, but the craftsman also needs to be an artist. Tools and taste and keep

learning. You know, there's a book called The Lean Startup. Eric Ree said this, "The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else." So, I'm sorry if you feel a little bit overwhelmed, but if you want to be in the game, and

the game is good, like this is an amazing opportunity. YouTube, getting paid from the platform, more brand deals. What we talk about is the YouTube business bridge, getting views, leads, and sales with fierce clarity and building your business and getting

clients from YouTube. This is the opportunity in front of us. But the only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else. Number two, three big action items. and takeaways for creators of business owners. Number two, your

video library is your greatest asset. Your video library is your greatest asset. We have been sharing for years in our video ranking academy community that the goal on YouTube is to build a library of ranked videos that get views

247. That's still true today. And even as SEO has evolved and search has evolved, it's still true. A ranked video is just a video that you post today that keeps getting views for weeks, months, and years to come. I don't care if those

views come from search. I don't care if those views come from Google. I don't care if those views come from homepage recommendations.

Like, if you have a library of videos that get views 24/7, you've built a real media asset.

Building your brand on YouTube is the best place to build your brand. An investment in YouTube is an investment in the future and an investment in greater awareness of your message, your mission. And so that's always been one

of the most valuable things a creator can build. The hard part was keeping your old videos optimized. So my takeaway here is the AI tools is like build a video library, but also embrace these new tools to optimize your old library. And don't

just always think about posting the new videos. Think about building your catalog. It's it you should be thinking like a musician, you know, in a way. You could be thinking about I'm building a catalog of music and my old music, my

old albums have value and I can, you know, even re-release those deluxe versions. Maybe I can't get my masters. So, what do I do? I re-record them like Taylor Swift, you know, like you're building up catalog and and now you could optimize swapping

thumbnails on old videos and maybe a dead video gets revived. Um, going back in old videos with AI and so AI is starting to do that for you. And then lastly, start now. Whether you feel plateaued and stuck, you know, again,

have a fourth coffee on me. Um, and and then start now. Like if YouTube's starting to feel overwhelming, I get it.

Uh, but again, every video you post is is an investment in an asset, your brand, your personal brand. So if you feel stuck, keep going. If you're plateaued, reinvent yourself, relearn, and keep going. And if you're starting from scratch, like the thing is like the

pain of of discipline I think is not as bad as the pain of regret.

If you've been thinking about starting YouTube for the past five years, watching everybody else for the past seven years, like get off the sidelines and get in the game. Is that a guarantee of the results you're going to get? No.

But it is guaranteed that you'll never have known and you might experience the pain of regret if you don't even try.

And when you start now, you begin looking back. You'll be like, "Thank God I watched that video with Sean Kel from Think Media, and I decided to start.

Start before you're ready. Start in the midst of how overwhelming it is. Start. You know, we could have one mindset, it's it's too much to learn, or we could have the mindset of I'm just going to learn a little bit each day. It's get

it's too hard now." Or no, there's a lot more opportunity now. And some people a lot of people are going to think that.

So, I'm going to be one of the ones that just posts and gets 1% better with every single upload. Now, I want to read to you some of the final words from Neil Mohan as we land the plane today because

I think it kind of puts a bow on this episode and this major announcement. Uh, but before we cover that, um, a couple things. One, if you're able to comment on the video, I'm curious what's your biggest takeaway? What's your biggest

question? What's your biggest fear? If you're listening on audio, you can always rate a review on Apple or Spotify.

And um and if you want to really take your YouTube channel to the next level, we are hosting a two-day event in Las Vegas. It's called the think mediamastermind.com.

All about YouTube strategy, how to get views, but also how to really build the business around your YouTube channel.

And then it's all about the community, networking, connecting with other creators and business owners that are serious about YouTube. So, check a summary of resources in the YouTube description or the podcast show notes or just go straight to thinkastermind.com.

But here's what Neil said at the end. He said, "I started today talking about our mission to build the best home for creators," which I think they're aiming for. I They want They're on a mission. It's cool to

hear YouTube's mission. Their mission is to build the best home for creators. And our track record of staying a one step ahead of how the world watches. And I think that's true, too. Nothing else is like YouTube. Nothing else is comparing

to YouTube. Nobody can keep up. Nobody has as good of tools. Nobody has as good of resources.

It's I'm not just glazing YouTube. I'm not saying it's without problems. It that's just I actually would argue objectively true. It's I think the best home for creators and they are one step ahead of how the world watches. He goes

on, "This is the next chapter of innovation for YouTube era. This is the new YouTube." In a lot of ways, the old YouTube is gone. And that's painful in a lot of ways. I mean, I wish the old

YouTube would come back. What the freak is all this split testing now? Like, how many versions of videos we got to create? No, I get it. The old YouTube is gone. Um, but it's up to you and it's up

to me and it's up to the global community to embrace the new YouTube and to keep the heart and soul on YouTube and to not just have the tech, but also have the taste, right? And not just embrace the tools, but please keep the

taste. Um, and the next chapter of innovation for YouTube is here. Uh, our momentum is only accelerating. What's happening for the future of YouTube? Of course, he's going to say that, you know, because he wants the stock price

to go up. Um, but uh, no, I I I think that the f I' I've never been more excited about YouTube than I am now. I was talking to creators in an event recently. Same thing. I've gone through

there's been seasons where I've been like kind of just grinding it out. Like future looks bright on YouTube. Um, it's not without challenges, but he goes on, we're we're excited for the world to watch as we continue to push the

boundaries of what's possible because the breakthrough technology, the stories that inspire us, and the culture that moves our world will always be made on YouTube. Forgive me if I butch uh butchered parts of that, but basically uh the future looks bright.

YouTube's going to continue to push the boundaries. momentum is only growing and that is what the math says and that is what the uh projections of the creator economy says and the real math of the dollars that are there now. I get it. It

could be overwhelming and it could feel like you're getting passed by or the algorithm is not seeing you. But let me encourage you. Don't quit. Maybe re-watch this video. Master the tools.

Learn the platform. Work on your craft. Keep your heart and artist soul. Build a library of videos and start