YouTube used its Made On event in New York on September 23 to show how far it wants AI to reach into both making and watching videos. CEO Neal Mohan pitched YouTube Studio as a partner that follows a creator from production through packaging to channel planning, with Google's Gemini models doing much of the suggesting.
The biggest change for creators is testing. Title and thumbnail A/B tests, rolled out gradually since 2023, will extend to whole videos, so a channel can put several cuts of one upload in front of viewers and keep the winner. Studio will also flag unusually strong performers as models for future uploads, and dynamic thumbnails will rotate preview images to suit different audience segments. YouTube backed the push with its first report on generative AI trends, which says 72% of US uploaders aged 14 to 44 used AI as a creative aid in the past year.
For viewers, the theme is tailoring. Custom Feeds lets people describe an interest and get a homepage tab that fills itself with matching creators, podcasts get personalised line-ups, Ask YouTube turns shopping questions into product suggestions, and YouTube Music gains Ask Music, its counterpart to Spotify's DJ.
Tubefilter reads much of the slate as borrowing from rivals. Shorts Series pushes further into TikTok-style microdramas, a format already past six billion views on YouTube, while co-hosting, live showdowns and automatic dubbing for vertical live streams are due in early 2027. Mohan said the company has shipped more than 3,000 product updates this year.
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