YouTube Is Creator First

YouTube announced a lot of changes at their Made On YouTube conference this week. There was one throughline that stood out to me: YouTube continues to roll out products that help creators more efficiently make and monetize their content. It’s clear that YouTube is committed to always putting creators first. Other platforms should be taking notes and following suit.

Here are the 4 big updates that stood out to me, and why I think they matter…

🛍 Dynamic Brand Deals: Dynamic brand segments are coming. Creators will be able to select a timestamp and run a brand deal, with the ability to remove or swap it later. We’re also getting branded links in Shorts (it’s about time).

I think this change could be significant for a lot of creators. Many of you know we bought The Roost Podcast Network from Warner Bros. a year ago, and we had always hoped this was the path we were headed toward. Thankfully, YouTube is now going to work similarly to how dynamic brand deals function within podcasting. We see this as an opportunity for creators to not only make more money (by pricing ads correctly based on views), but also by inserting other ads after that view guarantee has been met. We’ve gotten into the habit of adding clauses into contracts where, after 6 months and a set number of views, creators can remove ads. This update finally makes that kind of flexibility native to YouTube and allows creators to better monetize older videos.

👀 Likeness Detection: Within YouTube Studio, creators can now see (and manage) where their likeness is being used.

This has been a long time coming, and we’ve seen platforms like Outtake pop up to help creators with likeness detection across the internet. I’ve been hoping YouTube would move in this direction too, and it’s a huge win for creators. Every social platform should follow suit and roll this out next.

📢 Auto-dubbing: We’ve had auto-dubbing on the platform, but this new feature will also lip sync.

This is one I’ve always had a negative opinion on. Channels that lean too heavily into multi-language dubbing often end up slowly losing their English-speaking audience. I’ve always believed creators should prioritize strengthening that audience.

One thing this does open up is the ability for international creators to use auto-dubbing and lip syncing to grow an English-speaking audience. The problem with this is how competitive it already is to build an audience in the U.S. (but that could shift over time).

🧠 Ask Studio: This feature is like having your own personal YouTube strategist. It knows everything about your viewership data, comments, and thumbnail performance, making it easier to optimize your channel.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in YouTube Studio and have watched YouTube slowly roll out prompts that highlight key data. For example, it will flag if your retention drops in the first 30 seconds or if your CTR is lower than normal. It feels like YouTube has always been working in this direction, but I’m skeptical because I feel like the majority of creators are not paying attention to this.

YouTube’s new announcements focus on giving creators more control, flexibility, and earning power. Dynamic brand deals allow ads to be swapped or removed, unlocking new monetization options. Likeness detection protects creators’ identities, while improved auto-dubbing broadens global reach, although I don’t think this feature is necessary for every creator. Altogether, I think all of these new updates reaffirm YouTube as a creator-first platform.

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