On Saturday, I had an 11 hour trans-Atlantic flight and couldn’t sleep.

That was following the longest airport line I’ve ever been in, since we were smack dab in the middle of the impact of the cyberattack on the European air traffic system.

Here’s a quick vid of the Passport control line at the Nice Airport after about 60 minutes of waiting:

But it also gave me time to fully digest an absolutely explosing YouTube Made On event, where the company doubled-down on features for creator monetization, AI, shopping, music, live, and more.

Gotta assume vibe-coding is to blame for some of this, right?

Honestly, announcing 10% of these features would have made this an incredible drop.

This whole list is bonkers.

And it will change the way smart creators build their businesses forever.

But there was so many announcements I feel compelled to break down and order the new features from a creator rep point of view, as proper implementation of these new strategies will separate those who embrace the future of the creator economy and those who are about to lose all of their clients.

Let’s get into it.

Startups who switch to Intercom can save up to $12,000/year

Startups who read beehiiv can receive a 90% discount on Intercom's AI-first customer service platform, plus Fin—the #1 AI agent for customer service—free for a full year.

That's like having a full-time human support agent at no cost.

What’s included?

• 6 Advanced Seats

• Fin Copilot for free

• 300 Fin Resolutions per month

Who’s eligible?

Intercom’s program is for high-growth, high-potential companies that are:

• Up to series A (including A)

• Currently not an Intercom customer

• Up to 15 employees

Apply now

YouTube’s New Features Ranked

TLDR:

• AI will be a huge part of building successful careers on YouTube moving forward

• YouTube thinks both live and shopping will be massive products for them in the future

• YouTube’s focus on monetization is smart, as that’s where they’re already leading and can continue to attract shortform creators struggling to go full-time

22. Veo 3 end-to-end creation of YouTube Shorts

Coming in last place, not suprisingly, is Veo 3 end-to-end Shorts creation. Two huge problems: the videos still look and sound like AI, and being released into a universe where so many people hate AI aesthetic. This feature may as well be called ‘the fastest way to lose fans’ until the brand of AI video turns around.

21. AI Video Restyling in YouTube Shorts

Read above. Though more human touch generally means less backlash, AI styling is great for memes and bad for serious creators.

20. Adding Motion with AI in Shorts

I see the money-making case for this. Literally. It’s all over Facebook. Have you seen those pictures of Robert Redford with other celebrities in an oddly-quiet, kind of slow motion style laughing and hugging with twenty million views? Yup. That’s this. So people will watch it, but I have ethical concerns as I’ve seen most successful use-cases involving recently deceased celebrtiies or mocking current celebrities.

19. Speech Into Song

This one ranks so low for me because I find the pitch absolutely confounding. They dropped the idea of using video transcripts to make custom music beds. Does this mean that you’re going to hear someone talk then hear a music soundtrack with those words as lyrics? Or is it music just inspired by the transcripts? Either way, on a platform where you can add pretty much any song ever written, and those songs provide more discovery, I don’t see this feature making a lot of sense.

18. Adding objects into videos using AI

All of the AI problems listed above are still relevant, but I do see a very important use-case for creators with this feature. I could see a world where I can rep a creator getting 100 million monthly views mostly on back-catalogued content, and Coca-Cola paying me $100k per month to add a Coke can to their desk. Cheap CPMs, non-intrusive advertising, and the creator doesn’t have to do much extra work.

17. Music Release Countdown and Pre-Save

I get why this is useful for musicians. You want to build as much hype around the drop of your single as possible. But one thing I’ve learened from trying ‘premieres’ in 100 different ways over the past five years: it’s very rare to find a fan, even with a huge creator, who feels urgency to activate around a piece of content the absolute moment it is released. The real value is creating as much content as possible as quickly as possible once the song is available. This is more of a ‘nice to have’ than an ‘OH MY GOD!’

16. Rehearsal Mode for Livestreams

For anyone who has gone live before, you know what a big deal this is. However, most professional streamers have found ways to rehearse using OBS or another streaming software. And other platforms have had this for ages. But glad to see YouTube caught up with this.

15. Edit with AI

There are so many wonderful AI editors out there (Descript, Capcut, Opus Clip) that are cheap and effective, if not a bit rough around the edges. This will surely save some money and time for creators, but for top creators, I haven’t seen the level of accuracy in any AI editors that move this beyond clipping campaigns with podcasts, cheesy vacation recaps for friends, and inprecise mass uploading strategies.

14. Inspiration Tab Enhancements

We’re on number 14 and, to be honest, this and all the rest would be one of the best features in any previous feature drop by any social platform. That’s how many great features were announced! Getting creators to make content with 10% more viral potential is huge. If they’re making $1m per year, just 10% more views means potentially another $100k plus endlessly valuable new fandom. Any creator economy professional knows how to find time video trends, but making that process more joyous and accessible for creators will have huge impacts for monetization and growth.

13. Likeness Detection with AI

Think of this like Content ID for humans. Using AI, YouTube will be able to find deepfakes or stolen/re-edited content and allow the ‘owner’ of this likeness to take action. There are scant details around what action can be taken and how it will be enforced, but in an AI world, all platforms will have to figure this out fast. Which is my nice way of saying they should have spent more time figuring this out already.

12. AI powered highlights from livestreams

Big livestreamers spend a lot of time and energy on editing highlights. This is how they can use TikTok, Meta Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snap Spotlights to grow their reach. If they can finish a livestream and have all of these clips finished and ready to go, that will be huge for these straemesr. However, this will still run up against the ‘quality’ issue. Unless these clips are as good if not better than clips made by an overseas editor that costs $5 per hour, usage will be limited to mid-tier and longtail creators.

11. Ask Studio

A product with a brand name! Always appreciated! Let me blow your mind: most creators are creatives and don’t love sitting in their analytics tab all day. And if they do, they don’t always know what to do with that info. Being able to use AI to ask what they should care about with their analytics could be huge and, frankly, be a replacement for bad talent managers that also don’t understand how to interpret this data. However, this may run up against the issue of creators not even knowing what to ask, as I’ve so often seen when putting ChatGPT in the hands of creatives.

10. A/B Testing for Titles and Thumbnails

We’re here at the top 10! All killer, no filler. And this one is big. YouTube has had A/B testing for thumbnails for a while, and creators that have been using it a lot know how huge this has been for growth. Looping in titles should have a similar positive impact. But when talking to creators, I’m shocked at how few care about this. If you’re taking 10 hours to make a video and won’t take an extra 15 minutes to A/B test metadata so you can optimize how many people see it, what are you doing with your life?

9. Generate video from an audio-only podcast

Again, AI hatred alone, I know how important this is just to get great audio content distributed more widely. I had a comedy podcast we started way back in 2010 (right!?) and were only able to put it on YouTube by putting up a still text slate that took an hour per episode to render. But that led to hundreds more views per episode (RIGHT!?) so it was worth it! If this helps longform independent podcasts survive and thrive by having an AI equivalent of a video lava lamp happening as the audio played, I’m here for it.

8. Toggle between public and subscriber-only livestream access

Livestreamers will attest: getting viewers to become paid subscribers is a huge grind. Most viewers recognize that financial support from audiences is the only reason mid-tier streamers can continue streaming, but custom emojis and highlighted chats just aren’t that attractive. Being able to have an amazing free stream then announce ‘I’m about to do the really great stuff, but it’s for subscribers only!’ then have the stream go dark for non-subscribers is one heck of a pitch. We’ll be making 100% sure all of our YouTube streamers use this on nearly every stream, even if it’s just an extra 10 minutes of Q&A for subs at the end.

7. Top Fan Rewards

The real ones know: the ultimate strategy for the smartest creators isn’t to aggregate views or subscribers, but to deepen the level of fandom of your fans. Turning subscribers to converters to buyers to obsessees is the ultimate goal. Although details are scant, being able to send a hoodie to top fans or send them custom ‘thank you’ videos is a huge deal. We’ve been doing this with our creators manually for years and it’s hard to get creators excited to do it. If this tool makes it easier, this tool will get a lot of play.

6. AI tagging of products for AI shopping

The fact that this is coming in at number six is nuts, as this is one of the best features I’ve heard announced in years. For creators with aspirational fans that are crushing it on affiliate links, the ability to update old links, or even fill in the blanks on anything that wasn’t tagged (you tagged the blouse, but people really like the jeans!) this will be an absolutely passive way to make a ton more revenue.

5. Brand links in YouTube Shorts

It is so brutally hard to make money with shortform videos. The ad revenue simply isn’t there, and unless they drive audiences insane by showing two ads before literally every short video like they do with longform videos, it never will. Making bottom-of-funnel brands more likely to spend against shorts, even 10% more likely, will drive billions into this ecosystem. Now I just need the data to show these links can actually convert!

4. Simultaneous horizontal and vertical framing on YouTube Live

If you’re a streamer, especially game streamer, you know the tension between vertical and horizontal streaming. A lof of fans watch YouTube Live on their phones, but seeing a horizontal stream with black bars on the top and bottom is an absolutely horrible experience. I believe this will not only give better results to streamers who are streaming cross-platform (that’s a lot of them) but also allow streamers to no longer have to choose between optimizing for a younger mobile audience or more lean-back desktop or television audience.

3. Auto-dubbing with enhanced lip sync

We’re already seeing the incredible results from auto-dubbing, where many of our larger talent are seeing a lot more international fandom pop up. But watching a bad dub is frustrating, cheesy, dare I say, cringe? As the dub sound, lip matching, and cultural nuances of speech get better, our American creators will start unlocking more of the over 95% of the world that doesn’t speak English as their native language.

2. YouTube Native Collaborations

Collaborations are the fastest way to grow on YouTube, sans hitting a viral or becoming famous through an alternate form of media. Period. Hands down. No question. But figuring out how to convert that audience has always been a dance. Do you put half of a video on one channel then push to watch the other half on another? Do you just have the more popular creator host the video, then beg the audience to follow the other? Do you both post the video knowing full-well that repetitive content often tanks one of the two videos? This will solve this issue. And, I believe, will be far better for small creators than large ones. If you’re a bit player in a video for a big creator, for example, an actor that appears in Dhar Mann videos, this could make your career.

1. Creator-controlled ad native-video ad breaks

This is the biggest feature YouTube has launched since creator monetization. The vast, vast, vast majority of creators get the a huge amount of views from their back-catalogue. Many that we work with get up to 90% of monthly views from videos more than a month old. That’s an incredible amount of inventory that can make ad inventory money but not influencer marketing, affiliate, merch drop, or any other type of revenue. This allows brand to buy a whole channel. This allows the next creator entrepreneur who launches a candy brand to reach more of their audience faster. This allows influencer marketers to spend more in a de-risked way for a single campaign. This is the kind of tool that separates the good reps and the bad reps. If you aren’t getting your creators to use the heck out of this, you’re doing them a huge disservice.

There’s the 22! Don’t get me wrong: they mentioned a lot of other product tweaks and teased some other features along the way, and apologies if I missed other big ones, but with these 22 alone, I can see almost 100% of YouTube creators of all sizes changing the way they create, monetize, and provide better experiences for their audiences.