Everything YouTube announced at Made on YouTube 2026.

YouTube set out its new tools for creators and viewers at Made on YouTube on 23 September 2026, in a recap by chief executive Neal Mohan and six detailed posts published the same day.

Shorts series is rolling out now; most of the rest is dated “soon”, “later this year” or 2027.

Creation tools and YouTube Studio

The creation tools post carries the change most channels will use first. Video A/B testing is “coming soon”: a creator will be able to test up to three cuts of a video to see which hook works best. It builds on the title and thumbnail tests YouTube launched in 2024, which it says creators have used for more than 40 million experiments.

• Studio adds Insights and Research areas, feedback on a draft’s pacing and structure, thumbnails in a channel’s style, and dynamic thumbnails shown to different audience segments. YouTube gave no dates for these.
• Ask Studio can run in the background on older videos, suggesting and testing refreshed thumbnails.
• A conversational editing assistant built on Gemini is coming to Shorts and the YouTube Create app.
• AI comment moderation is in testing and opt-in, and learns a channel’s moderation style.
• Likeness detection moves into the mobile app, and later this year adds speaking voice detection to facial detection.

Live

From the YouTube Live post:

• Watch With expands from livestreams to all eligible long-form videos, with the rollout starting later this year: a creator can go live reacting to another creator’s video. The reacting creator keeps the live ad revenue and fan funding they earn; the original creator gets attribution, added view credit in Studio and full control over which videos can be reacted to.
• In early 2027 Go Live Together adds matchmaking: browse creators who are streaming now, or join a quick match queue.
• Live showdowns, coming in 2027, turn fan funding into a head-to-head contest between co-hosts, scored by viewers’ chats, gifts and Super Chats.
• Live auto dubbing starts as a pilot in early 2027, translating a streamer’s speech in real time.

YouTube says more than 600 million logged-in viewers watched live content, archives included, each day on average in August 2026, and that more than 40% of live watch time comes from outside a creator’s home country.

Brand deals and Shopping

From the creator products and Shopping post:

• YouTube Creator Partnerships, which puts channels in front of brands, is now available in 20 countries. A one-click code gives the brand access to a sponsored video’s performance.
• Ask Studio will “soon” help creators reply to brand briefs, build pitches and tailor a Media Kit.
• Dynamic brand segments, still in testing, insert a sponsor segment into up to 20 long-form videos at once.
• YouTube is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into incentives for agency partners.
• The Shopping affiliate programme reaches 35 countries by the end of the year. Amazon product tagging, live in the US, reaches India and Brazil in the coming weeks, and product tags now show an offer localised to where the viewer is watching.
• New affiliate campaigns let retailers and brands offer creators incentives such as exclusive commission rates or bonuses on named products.

YouTube says more than 1.3 million creators are in the affiliate programme, with gross merchandise volume up 13 times over two years, and that Shopping tags drive more than twice as many clicks as links in the description.

Shorts, TV and viewers

• Shorts series is rolling out now on web, mobile and TV, with seasons, episodes, custom thumbnails and sequential playback (the TV post). YouTube ties it to microdramas, which it says passed 6.5 billion views in the first half of 2026, with watch time up more than 50% year on year.
• Viewers can post comments from their TV by voice. Posts are being recommended in the Shorts feed on web and mobile and come to TV in the coming months; YouTube says more than 300 million users engage with posts every day.
• Custom Feeds, homepage tabs a viewer builds from a written prompt, come to US viewers on web, mobile and TV “soon” (the viewer post).
• Ask YouTube becomes a shopping guide: a viewer asks about a product and gets organised video recommendations, sometimes as a comparison table. YouTube gave no date or countries.

Music and Coachella

• YouTube Music adds Ask Music, a conversational search, and Your Podcast Lineup, a weekly spoken preview of shows, both “coming soon” worldwide (the Music post).
• Coachella stays exclusive to YouTube through 2030 under a renewed deal with Goldenvoice (the Coachella post).