THE ARTICLE · 15 MIN
YouTube held its yearly Made on YouTube event on 23 September 2026 and announced a long list of creator features. Some were switched on that day. Many are marked “soon”, “later this year” or 2027, and YouTube’s own posts don’t always agree on which is which.
This page sorts them by status, using YouTube’s own blog posts, its Help Center and a TeamYouTube announcement in its Help Community. Where YouTube’s pages disagree about timing, we give both. Everything here was read on 2 October 2026.
Features change quickly, so YouTube Studio is the place to check before relying on a detail. This page describes features; it says nothing about what anyone will earn.
What was announced
YouTube describes Made on YouTube as its yearly event for showing the latest product launches and platform improvements. On 23 September 2026 YouTube’s CEO published a summary post. Five more detailed posts appeared on the YouTube blog the same day, and a TeamYouTube post in the Help Community spoke of “over 30 announcements”.
For creators, they fall into a few groups:
- Shorts organised into series, and posts reaching more screens
- an AI editor for Shorts
- testing whole video cuts and thumbnails
- more from Ask Studio
- new live-stream formats and dubbing
- brand-deal and shopping tools
- new comment features
- likeness detection on phones and for voices.
The TeamYouTube post sets the pace: “Some updates are launching immediately or by the end of the month”. Others start small: “more experimental features—like live auto-dubbing—are starting as small pilot programs first.”
Status at a glance
As of 2 October 2026. “Live” means a YouTube page says it is available or rolling out now.
| Feature | What it does | Who or where | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shorts series | Groups Shorts into shows with seasons and episodes | Creators, set up in YouTube Studio on desktop | Live: “Rolling out globally now” |
| Image posts in the Shorts feed | Shows image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed | iPhone and Android | Live |
| Posts on TV | Shows posts in the YouTube app on TVs | “select markets” | Rolling out “in the coming months” (one line in the TeamYouTube post says “can now”) |
| Conversational editing | An AI chat editor for Shorts and the YouTube Create app | Android and iPhone, globally | Starting in early 2027 |
| Title and thumbnail A/B tests | Tests up to 3 titles and thumbnails | Desktop; advanced features needed; not Shorts | Live: thumbnails since 2023 or 2024, titles since 2025 (all creators with advanced features from December 2025) |
| Video A/B testing | Tests up to three cuts of a video or a Short | Select creators first | 2027 (“Coming soon” in the Studio post; the summary post says “can now”) |
| Several thumbnails per video | Shows the best of three thumbnails to different audiences | Not stated | “soon” (the Studio post describes it in the present tense) |
| Ask Studio draft feedback | Advice on a draft’s title, structure, script and pacing | Web now; phones next | Phones “Coming soon” |
| Personalized comment moderation | Holds comments that look like ones you removed | Opt-in, desktop | Experiment “later this year” |
| Likeness detection in the app | Set up, review and act from the YouTube mobile app | Enrolled creators | Announced, no date given |
| Voice in likeness detection | Adds speaking-voice detection to face detection | Enrolled creators | “Later this year” |
| React live (Watch With) | React live to other creators’ eligible long videos | Eligible videos | Rollout starting later in 2026 |
| Live creator matchmaking | Find creators who are streaming, or a quick match | Not stated | Early 2027 |
| Live showdowns | Head-to-head co-streams scored by fan funding | Co-hosted streams | 2027 (the summary post says “introducing”) |
| Live auto dubbing | Real-time translated audio for a live stream | Pilot, English and Spanish | Early 2027 |
| YouTube Creator Partnerships | Helps brands find channels | 20 countries | Live |
| Ask Studio for brand deals | Drafts replies to brand briefs and pitches | Not stated | “Soon” |
| Shopping affiliate program | Product tagging, in more countries | Partner Program channels with at least 500 subscribers | Target: 35 countries by the end of 2026 |
| Amazon product tags | Tagging Amazon products | US now | India and Brazil “in the coming weeks” |
| Members-only communities, GIFs in comments | Paid fan spaces; GIF replies | Not stated | No date on any YouTube page we could read |
| Custom feeds (for viewers) | Homepage feeds built from a typed prompt | US | “this fall” (“soon” in the viewer post) |
Shorts and posts
Shorts series. This one is live. Creators can group Shorts into a show with seasons and episodes. TeamYouTube describes it as “Rolling out globally now”. It is set up in YouTube Studio on desktop, and viewers in the Shorts feed see a “watch series” button.
YouTube Help adds the rules: the playlist must contain only Shorts, and each must be portrait or square and no longer than 180 seconds. Each Short in a series can carry its own custom thumbnail, and on the channel page a series shows as one thumbnail.
Posts. Image posts and carousels in the Shorts feed are “available now on iPhone and Android”. Posts on TV screens are “rolling out in the coming months” in “select markets”.
The pages don’t quite agree on TV, though. The same TeamYouTube post opens by saying TV viewers “can now access your image posts directly on your channel page”. YouTube’s TV post says posts are coming to TVs “in the coming months”.
YouTube says more than 300M users engage with posts daily, a figure published without a method. YouTube Help lists two limits: posts are not available to channels set as made for kids, and posts are not currently available in Germany.
Conversational editing. This one is still to come. It’s an AI editing assistant for Shorts and the YouTube Create app. You start from a suggested prompt or your own, then chat to trim pauses, reorder clips or sync music. You can still edit by hand.
The CEO’s summary post gives no date, but TeamYouTube dates it: “This feature will roll out globally on Android and iPhone starting in early 2027.”
Testing titles, thumbnails and videos
Title and thumbnail tests are live, and older than this event. YouTube Help says creators can test and compare up to 3 different titles and thumbnails, on desktop only, after enabling advanced features. Shorts, Scheduled Lives and Premiere videos cannot be tested, and nor can videos made for kids.
The winner is chosen by overall watch time, not by other metrics like click-through rate.
When thumbnail testing began. YouTube’s posts give two years. In September 2025 YouTube said it had been used over 15 million times since it launched in 2023. In September 2026 it said creators had run more than 40 million experiments since it “officially launched in 2024”.
YouTube’s June 2024 creator post said thumbnail testing was then “rolling out to any and all channels with Advanced Features enabled”. That may be the 2024 launch the later post means.
Title testing came later. In September 2025 YouTube said “now you can test and compare up to three titles and thumbnails per video”. Then in December 2025 TeamYouTube said “All creators with access to advanced features now have the ability” to test titles.
Whole video cuts are announced, not live. It’s easy to see why video testing can sound live already, because one of YouTube’s own posts uses the present tense.
The YouTube Studio post says: “Coming soon, you’ll also be able to test up to three video cuts to see which hook performs best.” The CEO’s summary post words it differently: “Creators can now use Studio to … use video A/B testing to try out up to three different cuts.”
YouTube’s Creators account on X gives the most precise date: video A/B testing, for “up to 3 edits of a Short or video”, is “launching to select creators in 2027”. The Help Center page on A/B tests still covers titles and thumbnails only, so we treat video tests as a 2027 feature.
Several thumbnails per video. TeamYouTube says that “soon, you’ll be able to upload up to three different thumbnails per video, and YouTube will show the best thumbnail to different audiences.”
YouTube Studio and Ask Studio
Ask Studio is the AI chat assistant inside YouTube Studio, introduced at Made on YouTube 2025. YouTube Help says it is available to most YouTube creators globally, but “available only on web browsers on your computer”. Channels set as made for kids, Official Artist Channels and creators under 18 do not get it.
It can already give feedback on draft, private or unlisted videos. The 2026 announcements add feedback on the title, structure, script and pacing of video drafts, which is “Coming soon to iPhone and Android”. They also add help finding older videos that could use a new thumbnail, and new Insights and Research pages to discover outlier videos.
TeamYouTube says the Studio updates are “rolling out globally across mobile and desktop starting now through 2027”.
Two things from the Help page are worth knowing before using it. Conversations are deleted automatically after 30 days. Human reviewers may read and process them, after YouTube disconnects them from your account.
The page also says the quality and accuracy of responses may vary. Like any chatbot it can be wrong; our page on why AI makes things up explains why.
Live streams
YouTube says more than 40% of live watch time comes from viewers outside a creator’s home country. That is the case it makes for dubbing. All four live features are dated after the event:
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React live (Watch With). Creators will be able to react live to other creators’ eligible long videos, “with a roll out starting later this year”. YouTube says reacting creators keep the live ad revenue and fan funding they earn. Original creators get attribution, view credit and “full control over which of their videos can be reacted to.”
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Creator matchmaking. “In early 2027”, creators will be able to pick from others who are streaming or join a quick match queue. Until now, creators could only invite an offline guest with a link.
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Live showdowns. Co-hosts compete while viewers’ chats, gifts and Super Chats push a score, “coming in 2027”. The CEO’s summary post says YouTube is “introducing Live showdowns” without a date; the live-stream post dates it.
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Live auto dubbing. It translates your speech automatically, in real time. The live-stream post says it is a pilot “starting in early 2027”. TeamYouTube says it is “piloting in English and Spanish early next year”. Who joins the pilot is not stated.
Hype, shopping and brand partnerships
Hype lets viewers push a video from a smaller channel up a weekly leaderboard. YouTube Help says it is for channels in the YouTube Partner Program with 500–500,000 subscribers. It lists 39 locations, and covers long videos in their first 7 days, not Shorts.
Viewers can hype up to 3 times each week at no cost, and the fewer subscribers a creator has, the more bonus points are applied. Hype is enabled by default for eligible creators.
Hype with Jewels lets viewers spend Jewels, YouTube’s virtual items, to go beyond the limit of 3 a week. YouTube Help says “Viewers in these countries can hype with Jewels: Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan”. It covers videos uploaded in the last 7 days by creators under 500,000 subscribers who have turned it on.
In those four countries a viewer’s handle can appear in a recognition section in the video description. Jewels themselves can be bought in 77 countries and territories.
Shopping. The YouTube Shopping affiliate program has been open since March 2026 to Partner Program creators with at least 500 subscribers who meet eligibility guidelines.
YouTube says it is expanding the program “to 35 countries by the end of the year”. It also says Amazon product tags, already available in the US, will come to India and Brazil “in the coming weeks”.
Product tags will also show viewers a link localised to where they are watching. A new affiliate-campaigns feature lets brands invite creators to feature specific products.
Brand partnerships. YouTube Creator Partnerships, which helps brands find channels, is “now available in 20 countries”; YouTube’s posts do not list them. Creators “can now share a one-click code with partners” so a brand can see a video’s performance. “Soon”, Ask Studio will help draft replies to brand briefs.
Community and comments
Personalized comment moderation is announced but not running yet. TeamYouTube describes it as an optional, opt-in tool. It learns from the comments you have removed by hand, and holds similar new comments in your Held tab for review, with a 7-day summary.
It adds: “Comments are never deleted automatically without your consent.” It is “Rolling out as an experiment on desktop in YouTube Studio later this year.”
The CEO’s summary post also mentions “members-only spaces”. The only text description we could find is TechCrunch’s report of the event. It describes paid, members-only communities “where members can share posts and start discussions with other top fans”, GIF replies in comments, and comments posted from a TV by voice.
YouTube’s own TV post confirms the voice comments. None of the pages we read gives dates or countries for members-only communities or GIF comments.
Protecting your likeness
Likeness detection looks for videos on YouTube where a creator’s face “appears to be altered or generated by AI”. It opened to all Partner Program creators as an open beta in September 2025. On 15 May 2026 TeamYouTube announced it would expand “to all eligible creators who are over the age of 18”.
To set it up you must be a Channel Owner or Manager and verify with a government-issued ID and a brief video of your face (a selfie video). YouTube Help calls it “an experimental feature” that “isn’t available in some countries”.
Today it matches faces only: “Currently, the feature is only used to detect matches of an enrolled creators’ face.” Removal is not automatic. YouTube says it will not remove all content, and it weighs several factors in removal requests, including whether the content is parody or satire.
The data is kept for up to 3 years from the last time you signed into YouTube, unless you withdraw your consent. You can opt out at any time.
Two things are new. “Later this year, we’ll start integrating speaking voice detection with facial detection”, YouTube says. And likeness detection is coming to the YouTube mobile app. For the AI terms used here, see our AI glossary.
How a small channel can use what’s live today
These use only features that YouTube’s pages describe as available now.
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Turning a run of Shorts into a series. A channel that already posts multi-part Shorts can group them into a Shorts series in YouTube Studio on desktop. Each must be portrait or square and 180 seconds or shorter. Viewers then get a “watch series” button that plays the episodes in order.
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Testing titles and thumbnails on older videos first. YouTube’s own tip is to test older videos first, to reduce the impact on the channel’s overall views. A test can take a few days or up to 2 weeks, and YouTube says “It’s normal not to receive a ‘Winner’ test result.” Options that differ clearly are more likely to produce one.
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Posting images between uploads. Image posts and carousels can now appear in the Shorts feed on phones, which gives a channel something to put in front of viewers between videos.
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Leaving Hype switched on. For Partner Program channels with 500 to 500,000 subscribers in a supported location, Hype is on by default, and smaller channels get bigger bonus points. Viewers can hype a new long video only in its first 7 days.
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Using Ask Studio for draft feedback, with care. On a computer, Ask Studio can review draft, private or unlisted videos. Its answers may be wrong, and its chats can be read by human reviewers, so nothing confidential belongs in them.
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Setting up likeness detection. Creators over 18 who own or manage a channel can enrol from YouTube Studio on a computer where it is available. Verification “may take up to 5 days”.
YouTube’s announcement says the new tools “are completely optional” and that “You always have final approval over what you publish.” For a wider view of where YouTube viewing is heading, see the post-authenticity shift.
What we couldn’t confirm
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Members-only communities and GIF comments: we found no YouTube text page describing them; the dates, countries and eligibility are not published in anything we read.
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Hype with Jewels: what changed at the event; YouTube Help still lists only Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
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The launch year of thumbnail testing: YouTube has said 2023 and 2024. Its June 2024 post describes the rollout to all eligible channels, but no YouTube page says which launch the 2024 date means.
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Which creators count as “select creators” for video A/B testing, who gets several thumbnails per video and conversational editing first, and who joins the live auto dubbing pilot.
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Which 20 countries have YouTube Creator Partnerships, and which countries get Amazon tags after India and Brazil.
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Usage figures: the posts and live-watch figures are YouTube’s own, with no published method.
How to use this
An announcement and a launch are different things, and YouTube’s own pages show the gap. When a feature sounds new, the dated page is the one to look at: it says who gets it, where, and when. The words worth watching are the ones this page quotes, from “now” and “soon” to “later this year” and a plain year such as 2027.
Sources
- YouTube Official Blog, 23 September 2026: Neal Mohan, “Innovation for the YouTube Era: What’s new for viewers and creators”; “New tools to power your creation journey from start to finish”; “New YouTube Live tools for fan funding, dubbing and more”; “Bringing brands and creators together to help you earn more”; “Connect with creators on the biggest screen with YouTube’s latest features”; “Dive in and discover what’s next on YouTube with our latest viewer features”; Made On YouTube 2026 hub and FAQ.
- YouTube Help Community, TeamYouTube: “New features for the YouTube Era: Made on YouTube 2026” (23 September 2026); “Expanding likeness detection to all creators 18 & over” (15 May 2026); “You can now A/B test titles and thumbnails on your videos!” (8 December 2025).
- YouTube Help: Likeness detection on YouTube; A/B test titles & thumbnails; Learn about Ask Studio; Hyping videos eligibility, availability & policies; Hype a video; Create shows from your videos; Learn about posts; Virtual items policy for viewers.
- YouTube Official Blog: “Transform your creative journey with the latest YouTube Studio updates” (16 September 2025); “Earn earlier: expanding YouTube Shopping to creators with 500+ subscribers” (25 March 2026); “Rene’s Top Five on YouTube: June 14, 2024 edition” (14 June 2024).
- YouTube Creators on X, post on video A/B testing (23 September 2026).
- Sarah Perez, “YouTube is making comments more fun — and fandom more lucrative for creators”, TechCrunch (23 September 2026).
Checked October 2026. We read YouTube’s seven Made on YouTube 2026 blog pages, three TeamYouTube announcements, eight YouTube Help pages, three earlier YouTube blog posts, one post from YouTube’s Creators account on X and one TechCrunch report, all on 2 October 2026. We did not watch YouTube’s recap videos.
- youtube
- creators
- made on youtube
- youtube studio
- youtube shorts
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