YouTube is expanding its in-app video sharing and messaging feature to the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Singapore, and several U.S. territories, per the availability list on its help page.
The rollout, announced in a blog post, lets users 18 and older share videos and chat about them without leaving the YouTube app.
It brings back a version of messaging YouTube removed in 2019, when it told users to share videos through other apps. Sharing a YouTube video has usually meant sending a link through a messaging app ever since. This update brings some of that activity back onto the platform.
How The Feature Works
Messaging on YouTube runs on invites. You send an invite link from the new messaging icon, and the recipient can allow or decline. Per YouTube’s help documentation, invite links expire after seven days.
Once connected, people can share long-form videos, Shorts, and live streams, then chat about them in the app. Messages can be unsent, and users can block or report each other.
The feature requires being signed in to a YouTube channel with a verified age of 18 or older. It’s currently unavailable for Brand Accounts.
YouTube’s Community Guidelines apply to shared content and messages, and its systems may scan messages for policy violations. The help page notes that message content won’t be used for ad targeting.
Messaging Returns After A 2019 Removal
YouTube launched its original Messages feature in 2017 and removed it in September 2019. At the time, the company said it would “focus on improving public conversations” through comments, posts, and stories.
The revived version began as an experiment in Ireland and Poland in November 2025, which YouTube described as a “top feature request.” It expanded to 31 European countries in March before this week’s announcement.
Why This Matters
Shares are an engagement action you can see in YouTube Analytics, but the conversations around them have happened in other apps. In-app messaging moves some of that activity to where you publish.
YouTube hasn’t said whether shares sent through messaging will show up differently in analytics or influence recommendations. The Brand Account restriction also means you can’t use the feature from a brand channel for now.
Looking Ahead
YouTube says it plans to expand the feature further but hasn’t named the next markets or given a timeline.
The rollout appears staged. YouTube’s blog post says the feature is “starting to expand,” while the help page says video sharing and messaging is available only in select countries and is not available to everyone at this time.
YouTube is making it easier for everyone to see when AI is used in videos by adding automatic detection and putting labels in more noticeable spots.
The changes will affect where labels appear and how they’re applied. YouTube Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie detailed the updates in a video posted alongside the announcement.
Where Labels Are Moving
For long-form videos, you’ll find the “AI” label right below the video player instead of in the expanded description. And for Shorts, it’ll appear as an overlay on the video itself.
In the past, AI content labels were placed inside the description panel, so viewers needed to open it to see them. Labels only showed up on the player for videos about sensitive topics like health, news, elections, or finance.
The new placement makes AI disclosures easy to see without extra clicks. YouTube notes that unrealistic, animated, or slightly changed content can still be automatically labeled as AI. .
Ritchie says the goal is immediate awareness, stating:
“If it looks real, but was made with AI, viewers will know immediately.”
Automatic Detection
Although creators are required to manually disclose when they use AI, YouTube is now adding its own detection layer.
It will automatically apply labels when it detects photorealistic AI content that hasn’t been disclosed.
Ritchie says:
“If YouTube systems detect significant photorealistic AI, and it hasn’t been disclosed, we’ll now apply that label automatically.”
Just to be clear, automatic detection doesn’t take the place of the manual disclosure requirement.
Permanent Labels & Creator Control
Creators who feel their content was wrongly labeled can dispute the status in YouTube Studio.
Labels are permanently attached to content created with YouTube’s own AI tools, such as Veo and Dream Screen. These labels also stay on content that includes C2PA metadata showing it was entirely generated by AI.
No Effect On Recommendations Or Revenue
YouTube confirmed that labels don’t affect how the platform’s algorithm treats a video.
Ritchie added:
“These labels alone do not affect how our videos are recommended or whether they can earn money. This is purely about giving viewers the right information at the right time.”
He’s saying that properly disclosed AI video won’t be downranked simply because it carries the label.
That doesn’t mean labels can’t affect performance. If viewers see an AI disclosure and choose not to click, or spend less time watching, those behavior signals could affect how the video performs in recommendations.
In that sense, the update doesn’t create a direct algorithm penalty. It gives viewers clearer context, and viewer response may shape what happens next.
Why This Matters
Visible AI labels give viewers a way to tell human-created content from AI-generated material before they decide what to watch. That’s context they didn’t have when disclosures were buried in the description.
This matters most on Shorts, where one in five videos recommended to new users is AI-generated.
Looking Ahead
Whether viewers treat labeled content differently is the long-term question. YouTube says the algorithm won’t penalize it, but audience behavior could create its own sorting effect as labels become more visible.
YouTube brought several AI-focused updates to Google I/O this year, but two announcements stood out more than the others.
The platform is introducing a new conversational discovery experience called “Ask YouTube” alongside expanded AI video remixing powered by Gemini Omni.
Together, the updates suggest YouTube is putting more focus on helping users discover content through natural-language interactions while making Shorts creation easier and faster for creators.
YouTube also spent considerable time discussing creator protections alongside the rollout, including watermarking, metadata labeling, opt-out controls, and expanded likeness detection tools tied to AI-generated remixes.
One of YouTube’s bigger AI announcements at I/O was a new conversational search feature called “Ask YouTube.”
According to Google, the experience allows users to search using more detailed questions instead of relying on traditional keyword searches.
Google’s examples included searches like:
Tips for teaching a child to ride a bike
Finding cozy game reviews before bedtime
Refining searches through follow-up questions
Rather than returning a standard list of videos, Ask YouTube compiles content from across YouTube, including both long-form videos and Shorts, into what the company describes as an “interactive, structured response.”
The update pushes YouTube closer to the same conversational discovery experience Google is increasingly building across Search through AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Instead of users manually sorting through results themselves, YouTube’s systems may play a larger role in interpreting intent and organizing recommendations around the query itself.
Ask YouTube is currently available to Premium members ages 18 and older in the United States through youtube.com/new, with broader rollout plans expected later.
Gemini Omni Expands AI Remixing Inside YouTube Shorts
Another major announcement focused on Gemini Omni integration inside YouTube Shorts Remix and the YouTube Create app.
YouTube described Gemini Omni as an upgrade designed to help creators generate new video variations from prompts and images while making remixing faster and easier inside Shorts.
According to the announcement, creators can:
Change scenes into different visual styles
Insert themselves alongside creators
Generate new concepts while preserving context from the original video
Perform more advanced video and audio edits automatically
Google says the system handles more of the editing complexity behind the scenes, reducing some of the technical work traditionally required for video remixing.
What stood out most from YouTube’s presentation was how heavily the company framed these tools around creator participation rather than pure automation.
Many recent AI creative announcements across Google products have emphasized efficiency and scale. YouTube’s messaging leaned more toward helping casual creators participate in trends and create content more easily.
The company also spent significant time discussing creator protections.
AI-generated remixes created through Omni will include digital watermarks, identifying metadata, and links back to original videos.
Creators can also opt out of visual remixing inside Shorts entirely.
YouTube additionally announced expanded access to its likeness detection tool for creators ages 18 and older. The system is designed to help creators identify and manage AI-generated uses of their likeness.
Gemini Omni remixing is rolling out now at no cost inside Shorts Remix and the YouTube Create app.
What These Updates Could Mean Next
Ask YouTube suggests YouTube may gradually shift toward a more conversational discovery experience instead of relying as heavily on traditional search behavior alone.
That could eventually create new challenges for creators, marketers, and advertisers trying to understand how content is surfaced and discovered inside the platform.
Historically, YouTube optimization has depended heavily on measurable signals like search queries, clicks, watch time, thumbnails, subscriptions, and recommendations.
Conversational discovery introduces more interpretation between the user query and the final content recommendation.
That creates a situation where users may become less likely to search using highly trackable keywords and more likely to rely on broader conversational prompts and follow-up questions.
Advertisers are already navigating similar visibility and reporting concerns across AI Overviews and AI-powered Search experiences.
If YouTube continues moving in that direction, measurement and attribution may become increasingly difficult there as well.
Google did not announce any ad-specific changes tied to these updates.
The announcements remained heavily focused on creator tools, remixing capabilities, and user experience improvements.
Still, the longer-term implications around reporting transparency, discovery visibility, and AI-organized content experiences will likely be worth watching as these features expand more broadly across YouTube.
YouTube is testing “Ask YouTube,” a conversational search experience that returns AI-generated text summaries alongside cited videos and supports follow-up questions in a persistent thread.
YouTube describes the feature on its Premium Early Access page as “a new way to search on YouTube that feels more like a conversation.” Users can ask complex questions, receive results that combine video and text, and ask follow-ups to dive deeper.
How It Works
After opting in to the experimental feature, An “Ask YouTube” button appears in the search bar.
Screenshot from: YouTube, April 2026.
When a query is submitted, the page briefly loads, then displays a text summary, a primary cited video linked to a timestamped section, and galleries of longform videos and Shorts.
The experiment is available to Premium subscribers in the US who are 18 or older, searching in English on desktop, and runs until June 8.
How It Behaves In Practice
I tested the feature with a query about reactions to Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 model. Here’s an example to illustrate how Ask YouTube presents results:
Screenshot from: YouTube, April 2026.
In my test, the page displayed a generated title (“User Reactions to Claude Opus 4.7”), a subhead, a summary paragraph, and an embedded video with a timestamp to a related section. Below are citations, related videos, and Shorts.
Follow-up questions can be asked within the same thread. Here’s an example of a follow-up question I asked: “how does it compare to GPT 5.5”
Screenshot from: YouTube, April 2026.
This response even included a comparison table with links to the videos it pulled the data from:
Screenshot from: YouTube, April 2026.
YouTube notes on its experiment page that “quality and accuracy may vary” and asks users to submit thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback with optional rationale.
Why This Matters
This expands YouTube’s AI search testing beyond the carousel. YouTube first tested AI Overviews in search results last year, showing video clips for product and location queries. Ask YouTube now summarizes content as text upfront, with videos as supporting sources and related results.
For creators, the key question is what makes a video the main citation rather than a supporting item or an omission. YouTube hasn’t shared selection or ranking signals for Ask YouTube.
Looking Ahead
The experiment ends June 8 unless YouTube extends it. We’ll provide an update if YouTube publishes selection signals or rolls the feature out more broadly.
Most articles don’t make good videos. The ones that do share qualities that translate naturally to 60-second formats. Identifying them before you commit production resources saves more time than any editing shortcut.
Data and first-party guidance point to repeatable patterns in how short-form video holds attention. These patterns shape script structure in ways that written content doesn’t prepare you for.
A 1,500-word article that performs well as text may contain only 150 words worth converting to video, and those 150 words may not be the ones you’d instinctively choose.
In this guide, I’ll walk through the selection and scripting process, drawing on company guidance, third-party analysis, and creator workflows. The focus here is on two decisions that matter more than production quality. Which content to convert, and how to structure scripts that hold attention on each platform.
Some creator workflows follow an 80/20 rule: Spend most of your time choosing what article to convert, then polish the output. You may assume production quality drives results. In practice, selection matters more than polish.
How-To Content
How-to and tutorial content adapts well when converted to video. The reason is because of how it’s structured. How-to content breaks naturally into steps, and each step becomes either a standalone clip or a beat within a longer video. The segmentation is already built into the written piece.
Listicles
Listicles have this quality as well. Each list item gives you a cut point, so a “7 ways to improve X” article can become seven separate videos or one video with seven sections.
FAQs
FAQ content works well as each question-answer pair delivers complete value on its own, matching how people consume short-form video. They arrive mid-scroll, expecting an immediate payoff.
Case Studies
Case studies with clear problem-solution-result structures fit naturally into 60 seconds. Problem in the first 10, solution in the middle 40, result in the final 10. The narrative arc compresses without losing its logic.
Avoiding Content That Doesn’t Convert
Content that converts poorly has its own unique qualities.
Limited-Time Announcements
Announcements with a short shelf life rarely justify the effort because by the time you script, record, edit, and publish, the information may be stale.
Rapidly-Changing Data
Statistics-heavy pieces where data changes frequently create maintenance problems. A video claiming “X platform has 500 million users” becomes misleading within months, but it keeps circulating after the number expires.
Complex Arguments
Complex arguments that require multiple supporting points rarely fit into 60 seconds. If an article’s value comes from building a case across 2,000 words, extracting 150 words guts the logic that made it persuasive.
Audit Using Engagement Metrics
Before committing production resources, audit existing content using engagement metrics. Articles with 5%+ engagement rates or 1,000+ monthly visits make prime candidates because they’ve already validated the topic with your audience. Converting them becomes distribution rather than experimentation.
In one Diggity Marketing case study, a real estate technology company saw 148% higher referral traffic after repurposing blog content this way. They identified where their audience searched, built format-specific assets, and drove users back to core content. The blog became a hub with videos pulling attention from social platforms back to owned properties.
Script Timing That Matches Platform Retention
Each platform has different structural requirements, which means scripts optimized for one may underperform on another.
OpusClip’s retention analysis suggests YouTube Shorts see strong retention at 15-30 seconds, with tutorials often running 25-40 seconds. YouTube Shorts can run up to three minutes, but many retention-focused workflows start with shorter cuts. Many Reels strategies even skew shorter, and retention can drop as videos run longer.
TikTok for Business recommends 21-34 seconds for In-Feed ads. On TikTok, strong completion and replay behavior tend to correlate with wider distribution. If you’re aiming for TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, videos need to be at least one minute long.
These differences mean a single script may need three versions for cross-platform distribution. Your core content stays the same, but timing adjusts to match each platform’s retention curve.
For videos at least one minute long (required for TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program), TikTok’s Creative Codes recommend a three-part structure: hook, body, and close.
The math shapes everything else. Industry standard speaking pace for video runs 140-160 words per minute, which means a 60-second script caps at roughly 150 words. TikTok’s research shows 90% of ad recall happens within the first six seconds, so your hook needs to land in that window. At a typical speaking pace, six seconds gives you about 15-20 words to establish why viewers should care.
That leaves roughly 45 seconds for body content and 5-10 seconds for your close.
If you’re spending 15-20 words on the hook and 15-25 on the close, the body gets 100-120 words. That’s enough for two or three points with room to breathe between them. More than three points in that space creates rush that tanks retention.
Think about it like this: If you can only say 150 words, you have to choose the 150 most important words from your 1,500-word article. That selection process is where conversion skill lives.
Hook Formulas Backed By Retention Data
The first three seconds determine whether viewers stay or scroll. A video with a weak opening has a problem, regardless of how strong the rest of the content is.
Here are some examples of strong hook formulas.
Surprising Stat
A surprising statistic paired with immediate relevance stops the scroll. Numbers signal credibility, and the surprise creates curiosity.
In practice, it reads like this:
“60% of people admit to procrastinating regularly, even when they know it causes stress.”
There’s an attention-grabbing stat, followed by why it matters to the viewer. This works because the number is specific and the relevance is universal.
Look for the most striking data points in your articles and move them to the front. Your article may have buried it in paragraph seven, while your video leads with it.
Questions
Question hooks create tension. Once you pose a question, the mind wants an answer, and viewers have to keep watching to close that loop.
The question needs to be specific enough to promise an answer in 60 seconds but broad enough to matter to your audience.
“What’s the one thing successful people have in common?” works. “What are the 47 traits of successful people?” doesn’t work because viewers know they can’t get that answer in under a minute.
Direct Stake
Direct stake hooks can capture the attention of professional audiences.
“If your site uses Product markup, this affects your shopping visibility,” tells professionals whether this video applies to them. This respects their time because they don’t have to guess whether the content is relevant.
Vague promises like “this changes everything” underperform because they don’t commit to delivering anything specific.
Converting Articles To Scripts
Converting articles to short video scripts is all about extracting what’s most important. Start by reading your article and asking what the most surprising, useful, or consequential single fact is. That becomes your hook.
Often, the most compelling part of an article sits in paragraph three or four. Written content gives you time to build context in your opening, whereas video doesn’t.
You can simplify the extraction process by following the hook, hint, value, credibility, takeaway, action (HHVCTA) framework.
HHVCTA Framework
The HHVCTA framework maps article content to video structure. The hook at 0-2 seconds stops the scroll, and the hint at 2-5 seconds previews what viewers will learn.
Value delivery from 5-45 seconds delivers on the hook’s promise, with credibility woven throughout or concentrated in a key moment. The takeaway at 45-55 seconds lands the message, and the action in the final seconds directs viewers to next steps.
This prevents frontloading all value with nothing left for the final 15 seconds. It also prevents the opposite mistake of saving everything for the end, which viewers never reach because they swiped.
A common underperforming pattern is the hook-delivery gap. The hook asks a question, the body pivots to related content without answering it, and viewers who stayed for an answer feel cheated.
After writing your body, reread the hook and check whether you actually answered the question. If your hook says “here’s why X happens” but your body covers effects without explaining causes, the script is a fail.
Maintaining Attention Through The Middle
The middle section is where most videos lose viewers. Incorporating pattern interrupts every 3-5 seconds can help maintain viewer engagement. Effective techniques include text overlays, B-roll, camera angle changes, and graphics.
While sound is essential to the TikTok experience, captions are critical for viewers in “quiet mode” (commuting, in bed, at work) and for discoverability. Showing and saying information together boosts retention and gives platforms additional signals about your content.
SEO For Video Content
TikTok says it considers “video information” like captions, sounds, and hashtags, so captions, on-screen text, and spoken audio can help your video get understood and surfaced in recommendations and search features.
Video titles should include primary keywords while piquing curiosity, and descriptions expand on the titles with more keyword context.
Caption accuracy matters for search. Auto-generated captions contain errors that platforms can pick up as content signals, so a video about “SEO” with captions reading “CEO” may surface for wrong queries. Review and fix auto-captions before publishing.
Hashtags signal categories to algorithms. Use broad tags like #marketing to reach large audiences, and specific ones like #emailmarketing for direct relevance. Evergreen content benefits from evergreen hashtags that maintain visibility months after posting.
Batch Production For Scale
Content teams that produce video at scale typically batch their workflows. Creators like Thomas Frank and Ali Abdaal have documented their batch filming processes, and Gary Vaynerchuk’s “64 pieces of content in a day” model is built on recording pillar content and distributing clips afterward.
Creating one video from scratch each time burns hours on repetitive decisions. You can cut per-video time by 60-80% through batching.
Batching refers to scripting multiple videos in one session, filming them all together, editing in batches with consistent formats, and then scheduling across platforms.
A typical batch for four to eight videos breaks down like this. Scripting all at once using templates takes two to three hours. Filming all videos in one session with consistent setup takes three to four hours. Editing across several days takes six to eight hours total. Scheduling takes about an hour.
Per-video time drops to roughly 40 minutes. Without batching, individual videos typically take 150-180 minutes each. The savings come from eliminating setup and context-switching between sessions.
Measuring Results
Short-form video works as top-of-funnel for most content teams. A video with 100,000 views and zero conversions may matter less than one with 10,000 views and 500 email signups.
When results fall short, retention curves pinpoint the problem. Sub-60% retention at three seconds points to hook issues. Steady early retention with sharp mid-video drops suggests pacing problems. Late drops typically mean content ran long or delivered value without giving viewers a reason to stay.
Looking Ahead
The gap between written content and video content is smaller than most teams assume. The research already exists. The expertise already exists. The structure is the only new variable, and that structure fits on an index card.
Teams that struggle with video production usually aren’t struggling with production itself. They’re struggling with selection and compression. They try to convert articles that don’t fit the format, or they refuse to cut material that worked in text but dies on screen.
The 150-word constraint is a decision-making tool that cuts editing in half before you start. Pick one article from your archive that performed well and had a clear takeaway. Convert it to a script. Then record it, read the retention curve, and adjust as needed.
You can keep reading articles like this one, but doing the work and iterating on it will teach you more than I ever could.
Every January, YouTube’s CEO publishes a letter outlining where the platform is headed. In most years, these updates read like a product roadmap. Neal Mohan’s 2026 letter reads more like a strategic manifesto.
“YouTube is the epicenter of culture,” Mohan writes, arguing that creators are now “reinventing entertainment and building the media companies of the future,” while YouTube becomes the infrastructure powering that transformation.
For digital marketers, this matters because YouTube is no longer simply a distribution channel for video ads or brand content. It is simultaneously:
A global television network.
A creator marketplace.
A commerce platform.
A discovery engine powered by AI.
Each of these identities has direct implications for how SEOs, content marketers, social media managers, and executives should plan their video strategies in 2026 and beyond.
Mohan organizes YouTube’s priorities around four themes: reinventing entertainment, building the best place for kids and teens, powering the creator economy, and supercharging and safeguarding creativity. When examined through a marketing lens, these themes reveal a clear message: The future of video marketing is integrated, creator-led, commerce-enabled, and increasingly measurable.
Creators Are Now Studios – And Brands Must Think Like Co-Producers
Mohan states bluntly that the era of dismissing YouTube content as “UGC” is over. Many creators now operate like full-scale studios, purchasing production facilities, hiring teams, and developing episodic series that rival traditional television.
This is more than a branding exercise. It represents a structural shift in how entertainment is financed, produced, and distributed.
Historically, brands approached creators as distribution partners. A product placement, a sponsored segment, or a one-off integration was often sufficient. But when creators control their own intellectual property and audience relationships, that transactional model breaks down.
The more effective model is co-production.
In a co-production model, brands are involved from the very beginning in shaping content formats, creative development is approached as a collaborative process, and campaigns are designed to unfold across multiple episodes or even entire seasons rather than as one-off executions.
This approach aligns with my coverage of the rising performance of long-term creator partnerships compared to short-term influencer activations.
From a business standpoint, this also improves efficiency. Instead of briefing dozens of creators on the same campaign, brands can focus on a smaller number of deep partnerships that generate recurring assets usable across organic, paid, and owned channels.
Practical actions:
Identify creators whose content themes align with your product category and brand values.
Propose multi-video or episodic collaborations rather than single integrations.
Negotiate usage rights so creator content can be repurposed in paid media.
Why this helps you work smarter:
One strong partnership can outperform 10 shallow ones.
Shorts At 200 Billion Daily Views Has Redefined Discovery
Mohan revealed that YouTube Shorts now average 200 billion daily views and that YouTube plans to integrate additional formats, such as image posts, directly into the Shorts feed. This confirms what many marketers have already observed: Shorts are now YouTube’s primary discovery surface. But the strategic implication goes deeper.
Shorts are not just a short-form video product. They are evolving into a multi-format social feed that blends elements of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and traditional social posts. For marketers, this means Shorts should be treated as the front end of a larger content system.
A high-performing ecosystem works by guiding audiences through different layers of engagement: short-form content introduces an idea, long-form videos explore it in depth, community posts and livestreams sustain engagement, and paid ads are used strategically to amplify what’s already working.
My guidance on optimizing YouTube Shorts emphasizes hook-driven openings, concise storytelling, and native formatting. Mohan’s roadmap reinforces that these are not “nice to have” best practices; they are essential for visibility.
Practical actions:
Build Shorts in clusters around a single topic.
Include subtle prompts directing viewers to long-form content.
Repurpose Shorts into vertical ads.
Why this helps you work smarter:
One long-form video can generate dozens of Shorts that extend its lifespan.
YouTube Is The New TV – Plan Accordingly
Mohan cites Nielsen data showing YouTube has been #1 in streaming watchtime in the U.S. for nearly three years. He also highlights YouTube TV innovations like customizable multiview and specialized subscription plans.
This reinforces a critical point: YouTube now dominates living-room viewing. For marketers, this collapses the old distinction between digital video and television.
If YouTube is increasingly functioning like television, production quality starts to matter again, long-form storytelling becomes a more viable format, and episodic content begins to make far more sense as a sustainable strategy.
This does not mean every brand needs a Netflix-style series. But it does mean brands should consider developing signature formats rather than only campaign-based videos.
Examples of this approach include monthly shows hosted by subject-matter experts, structured series focused on product education, and documentary-style content that showcases real customer success stories.
YouTube ads increasingly resemble connected TV buys, making YouTube an essential component of omnichannel planning.
Practical actions:
Develop at least one recurring video series.
Test YouTube Select or CTV placements.
Optimize thumbnails and titles for large-screen browsing.
Why this helps you work smarter:
A consistent series builds audience equity over time.
YouTube’s Commerce Push Turns Video Into A Direct Revenue Channel
Mohan’s emphasis on YouTube Shopping and frictionless in-app purchases signals a major evolution: YouTube is becoming a transactional platform. Historically, video excelled at awareness and consideration. Conversions often happened elsewhere. That model is changing.
With in-app purchasing, attribution becomes clearer, funnels shorten and return on investment (ROI) improves.
For performance marketers, this means YouTube deserves a seat alongside search and social in lower-funnel planning.
I previously covered YouTube’s shoppable ad formats and best practices for measuring performance-driven video campaigns.
Practical actions:
Integrate product feeds with YouTube.
Tag videos with product links.
Use retargeting to reach viewers who watched product-related content.
Why this helps you work smarter:
Video can now drive measurable revenue, not just brand lift.
AI Will Multiply Output – But Strategy Will Separate Winners
Mohan notes that over 1 million channels use YouTube’s AI creation tools daily and that new capabilities will allow creators to generate Shorts using their own likeness and experiment with music and games. At the same time, YouTube is actively combating low-quality “AI slop.”
AI excels at handling many of the executional tasks in content creation, such as drafting scripts, generating multiple variations, translating content into different languages, and automating captions at scale.
Humans, however, continue to lead where deeper judgment and creativity are required, understanding audiences, crafting compelling narratives, and defining a clear, authentic brand voice.
AI reduces production time so you can focus on strategy.
Measurement Is Shifting Toward Business Impact
Mohan’s focus on diversified monetization signals YouTube’s broader emphasis on outcomes. For marketers, this means moving beyond surface-level metrics.
Rather than defaulting to surface-level questions like “How many views did we get?”, it’s more useful to ask whether watch time increased, brand lift improved, and conversions actually rose.
I’ve previously outlined frameworks for measuring video ROI that connect engagement to revenue.
Practical actions:
Track watch time and retention.
Use brand lift studies.
Attribute conversions where possible.
Why this helps you work smarter:
You optimize based on results, not vanity metrics.
The Strategic Bottom Line
Neal Mohan’s 2026 roadmap reveals that YouTube is evolving into a unified ecosystem where creators, commerce, AI, and entertainment converge. For digital marketers, the opportunity is not to chase every new feature. It is to design integrated systems that:
Use Shorts for discovery.
Use long form for depth.
Use creators for trust.
Use paid media for scale.
Use commerce integrations for conversion.
The marketers who succeed in 2026 will not be the ones who produce the most videos. They will be the ones who build the smartest video ecosystems.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced the company’s priorities in his annual letter, previewing new AI creation tools, expanded shopping features, and format changes to Shorts.
AI Creation Tools
YouTube is adding three AI creation features this year. Creators will be able to make Shorts using their own likeness, produce games from text prompts through the experimental Playables program, and experiment with music creation tools.
More than 1 million channels used YouTube’s AI creation tools daily in December, according to the letter. The company also reported 20 million users learned about content through its Ask tool in December, and 6 million daily viewers watched at least 10 minutes of autodubbed content.
Mohan sees these tools as creative aids rather than replacements.
“Throughout this evolution, AI will remain a tool for expression, not a replacement,” he wrote.
YouTube also addressed concerns about AI-generated content quality, saying it’s building on spam and clickbait detection systems to reduce what Mohan called “AI slop.”
Shopping Expands With In-App Checkout
YouTube is pushing further into commerce with in-app checkout, letting viewers purchase products without leaving the site.
More than 500,000 creators are already in YouTube Shopping. Mohan cited creator Vineet Malhotra, who drove “millions of dollars in YouTube Shopping GMV in 2025.”
I covered YouTube’s commerce push back in September when the company announced AI-powered product tagging and automatic timestamps for shopping videos. In-app checkout is the next step, aiming to reduce the friction of sending viewers to external sites.
Brand partnership tools are expanding too. Shorts creators will be able to add links to brand sites for sponsored content, and a new feature lets creators swap out branded segments after publishing to turn back catalogs into recurring revenue.
Shorts Gets Image Posts
Image posts are coming to the Shorts feed this year. Shorts now averages 200 billion daily views, according to Mohan.
The addition brings YouTube closer to Instagram’s format, mixing static images with video in the same feed.
Parental Controls
Parental control updates announced last week let parents set time limits on Shorts scrolling for kids and teens, including setting the timer to zero. YouTube calls this an “industry first.”
How 2025 Promises Played Out
I covered Mohan’s 2025 letter when he announced TV had surpassed mobile as the primary viewing device in the U.S. That letter made similar commitments. Some shipped, others are still pending.
Auto dubbing, which he promised to expand to all YouTube Partner Program creators, rolled out. The 2026 letter says 6 million daily viewers now watch at least 10 minutes of autodubbed content. AI tools for video ideas, titles, and thumbnails launched through the Inspiration Tab last year.
YouTube TV’s multiview improvements are still coming. The 2025 letter promised enhancements; the 2026 letter says “fully customizable multiview” arrives soon. The specialized YouTube TV plans Mohan announced this year are new.
The likeness-based Shorts creation, text-to-game features, in-app checkout, and image posts in Shorts are all new to the 2026 roadmap.
Why This Matters
YouTube keeps building tools that hold users and transactions inside its ecosystem. AI creation features give creators more production options. In-app checkout gives YouTube more control over the commerce layer.
The $100 billion YouTube says it paid creators over the past four years shows the scale of its creator economy. These updates aim to keep that system growing.
Looking Ahead
Most features don’t have specific launch dates. Mohan used “this year” and “soon” throughout the letter.
Parental control updates are rolling out now. Creators in YouTube Shopping should watch for checkout integration, and those using AI tools can expect expanded options throughout 2026.
YouTube is updating its Advertiser-friendly content guidelines to allow more videos about certain “controversial issues” to earn full ad revenue, as long as the content is non-graphic and presented in a dramatized or discussion-based context.
YouTube is loosening monetization restrictions for videos focused on controversial issues that advertisers may define as sensitive, including abortion, self-harm, suicide, and domestic and sexual abuse, when the content is “dramatized or discussed in a non-graphic manner.”
YouTube’s Help Center update describes the change, stating that content focused on “Controversial issues” is now eligible to earn ad revenue when it’s non-graphic and dramatized, and that this replaces a previous policy that limited monetization regardless of graphicness or whether content was fictional.
The current “Controversial issues” policy section also explicitly includes “non-graphic but descriptive or dramatized content” related to domestic abuse, self-harm, suicide, adult sexual abuse, abortion, and sexual harassment under the category that “can earn ad revenue.”
How YouTube Defines “Controversial Issues”
YouTube defines “Controversial issues” as topics associated with trauma or abuse, and notes the policy may apply even if the content is purely commentary.
The Help Center list includes child abuse, adult sexual abuse, sexual harassment, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, domestic abuse, and abortion.
It also distinguishes between content that is “focal” versus “fleeting.” A passing reference is not considered a focus, whereas a sustained segment or a full-video discussion is.
Why This Matters
This update can change whether videos qualify for full ad revenue.
YouTube is drawing a clearer line between non-graphic dramatization or discussion (more likely to be eligible) and content that includes graphic depictions or very explicit detail (still likely to be restricted).
As with past advertiser-friendly updates, real-world outcomes can depend on how a specific upload is categorized during review, including signals from the video itself plus title and thumbnail.
Looking Ahead
It’s unknown whether previously limited videos will be re-reviewed automatically, or only on appeal.
Regardless, you shouldn’t wait for YouTube to do the work. Now is a great time to submit an appeal if your videos were affected by YouTube’s controversial issues policy.
Every December, brands battle for something far more valuable than views: emotional resonance. And according to new data from DAIVID, 2025 may be one of the strongest holiday seasons yet for emotionally engaging advertising across North America.
This year shows an acceleration of trends I’ve long argued shape effective holiday storytelling: nostalgia, warmth, joy, and authentic human narratives. These insights echo themes from my other articles on nostalgia marketing, John Lewis, and the full spectrum of 39 emotions that digital marketers can use to deepen engagement.
Let’s break down the list and analyze what each ad teaches us about crafting emotionally resonant creative.
1. Disney, Best Christmas Ever
Directed by Oscar winner Taika Waititi, Disney’s spot leads the 2025 list with a commanding emotional profile: It got 169% more adoration, 149% more nostalgia, 125% more warmth, and 115% more joy than the average U.S. ad.
The story, a young girl’s doodle magically comes to life after Santa mistakes it for a Christmas wish, pulls on the intersection of childhood imagination and holiday wonder.
This kind of warm, universal narrative aligns with what I’ve previously identified in nostalgia-driven campaigns, including the emotional DNA found in John Lewis’s best Christmas ads. Disney proves once again that if you can trigger both memory and magic, audiences respond.
Strategic takeaway: Emotional universality beats demographic targeting. A timeless story, well told, surpasses segmentation.
Score: 58.2% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
2. Chevrolet, Memory Lane
Chevrolet continues its tradition of leaning into family history, shared rituals, and Americana. “Memory Lane” is a deeply human piece, evoking the kind of reflective nostalgia that has long powered the auto industry’s strongest holiday ads.
This year’s showing demonstrates something I discussed in “Emotions Digital Marketers Can Use in Advertising”: nostalgia isn’t a single emotion. It’s a bundle (longing, warmth, appreciation, bittersweetness) all working together.
Strategic takeaway: When your product has a long lifecycle, storytelling should reference the past to add emotional depth to the present.
Score: 57.5% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
3. Subaru Support Charities Like Make-A-Wish When You Get A New Subaru
Subaru leans into purpose marketing, reinforcing its “Share the Love” identity. Charity-driven campaigns often rank high on DAIVID’s emotional indices, but Subaru’s strength is its consistency. The ad doesn’t feel opportunistic; it builds on years of brand equity in social good.
Strategic takeaway: Authenticity is measurable. Audiences can detect whether a brand’s social message aligns with its long-term behavior.
Score: 56.5% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
4. Publix, Merry Birthday From Publix
Publix has mastered the art of “quiet emotional power.” Its ads rarely rely on spectacle. Instead, they focus on family dynamics, cultural rituals, and everyday moments that feel lived in.
The 2025 entry blends two celebrations (Christmas and a birthday) into a single heartfelt narrative.
Strategic takeaway: Small stories often outperform big concepts. Audiences crave relatability as much as creativity.
Score: 55.6% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
5. Lego, Is It Play You’re Looking For?
Lego continues to position imagination as its emotional currency. The ad combines fantasy sequences with grounded holiday moments, appealing to both children and nostalgic adults, a dual audience Lego has long excelled at engaging.
This reflects a key insight from my analysis of holiday campaigns in 2024: brands that empower the audience, rather than simply entertain them, create deeper emotional bonds.
Strategic takeaway: Invite viewers into the story. Ads that celebrate creativity encourage emotional participation.
Score: 55% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
6. Real Canadian Superstore, Bringing The Magic Of The Holidays With The Moose
This ad stands out because it doubles typical U.S. ad levels for warmth and gratitude, two emotions that consistently predict brand affinity.
A whimsical moose may sound silly, but DAIVID’s data tells a bigger story: high-performing retail ads use metaphor and magic to elevate everyday shopping messages.
Strategic takeaway: Unexpected characters can deliver familiar feelings if they serve a strong emotional narrative.
Score: 54.4% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
7. Teleflora, The Boy And The Bot
One of the most interesting entries, Teleflora’s film blends technology with humanity. A boy befriends a robot, only to discover the emotional meaning behind giving, and receiving, flowers.
For a category traditionally rooted in romance or sympathy, Teleflora’s pivot to holiday sci-fi is bold.
Strategic takeaway: Emotional relevance can come from genre-bending storytelling, when the payoff still ties back to the brand’s purpose.
Score: 54.2% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
8. Gap, Give Your Gift
Gap has been rediscovering its brand voice in recent years, and this year’s holiday ad continues the trend. Music, movement, and human connection anchor the campaign, familiar territory for Gap, but executed with contemporary warmth.
Strategic takeaway: Legacy brands can win big by refreshing, not reinventing, their core emotional themes.
Score: 53.7% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
9. Walmart, WhoKnewVille
Walmart goes whimsical with a fictional holiday town and an ensemble cast. While the ad leans more comedic and fantastical than emotional heavyweights like Disney, it still ranks high for joy and warmth.
Strategic takeaway: Joy is an underrated emotional driver. When executed well, it performs nearly as strongly as nostalgia or empathy.
Score: 53.5% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
10a. Crayola, Blue Christmas (Tie)
Crayola continues to position creativity as emotional healing. “Blue Christmas” plays with color metaphor to tell a story of sadness lifted by artistic expression, a message that resonates with both kids and parents.
Strategic takeaway: Emotional arcs matter. Audiences respond strongly when ads move from negative to positive feelings.
Score: 53.4% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
10b. Uber, An Uber Holiday Story (Tie)
Uber’s holiday narrative focuses on connection, highlighting moments when rides bring people home, or help people show up for one another. It’s a subtle but effective adaptation of holiday storytelling to the gig economy.
Uber’s presence in the top 10 reinforces what Barney Worfolk-Smith, Chief Growth Officer at DAIVID, said: “The mood of holiday advertising shifts slightly each year, but this festive season we’re seeing an even stronger push toward storytelling over functional messaging. One thing remains constant, though: to win the hearts, minds, and crucially, the wallets of consumers, brands need the emotional lift that only great storytelling can deliver. Those emotional peaks are what ultimately drive real business outcomes.”
Strategic takeaway: Service brands can achieve deep emotional impact when they focus on the human moments they enable, not the service itself.
Score: 53.4% of viewers likely to feel intense positive emotions.
Final Thoughts: The Return Of Big-Hearted Holiday Storytelling
The 2025 rankings reinforce one overarching truth: Emotion, not budget, not celebrities, not media spend, is what drives holiday advertising effectiveness.
Disney won because it told the strongest story.
Chevrolet and Subaru succeeded because they tapped deep cultural values.
Publix and Lego connected through relatability and imagination.
Teleflora and Crayola proved that inventive storytelling still wins.
As we enter the final stretch of the holiday season, this year’s ranking offers one more important lesson:
Even in an AI-driven media landscape, human emotion remains the ultimate competitive advantage.
If you want your campaigns to break through the noise, holiday or otherwise, start with emotion, build with authenticity, and let story be your strategy.
Methodology
DAIVID evaluated 176 holiday campaigns, ranking them by the percentage of viewers predicted to feel intense positive emotions. They use a hybrid approach to compile this data. Combining computer vision, audio analysis, facial coding, eye tracking, and tens of millions of human responses to predict emotional impact and brand lift.
For marketers, this matters because:
Emotion is the single most reliable predictor of effectiveness.
AI now makes emotional testing scalable, rather than relying solely on expensive panels.
The 39 emotions DAIVID tracks align closely with modern behavioral science.
A claim about YouTube thumbnails is getting attention on X: that showing your face is “probably killing your views,” and that removing yourself will make click-through rates jump.
Nate Curtiss, Head of Content at 1of10 Media, pushed back, calling that kind of advice too absolute and pointing to a dataset that suggests the answer is more situational.
The dispute matters because thumbnail advice often gets reduced to rules. YouTube’s own product signals suggest the platform is trying to reward what keeps viewers watching, not whatever earns the fastest click.
Where The “Remove Your Face” Claim Comes From
In a recent post, vidIQ suggested that unless you’re already well-known, people click for ideas rather than creators, and that removing your face from thumbnails can raise CTR.
Believe it or not, your face in the thumbnail is probably killing your views.
Unless you’re already famous, people click for IDEAS, not creators.
Test removing yourself. Your CTR will likely spike.
Curtiss responded by calling the claim unsupported, and linked to highlights from a long-form report based on a sample of high-performing YouTube videos.
This is a pretty baseless claim lol.
We analyzed over 300,000 viral videos from 2025 to find the real answer to:
Do faces matter in thumbnails?
TLDR: It depends on your niche, your format, and how many faces you use.
The debate is one side arguing faces distract from the idea, while the other argues faces can help or hurt depending on what you publish and who you publish for.
What The Data Says About Faces In Thumbnails
The report Curtiss linked to describes a dataset of more than 300,000 “viral” YouTube videos from 2025, spanning tens of thousands of channels. It defines “outlier” performance using an “Outlier Score,” calculated as a high-performing video’s views relative to the channel’s median views.
On faces specifically, the report’s top finding is that thumbnails with faces and thumbnails without faces perform similarly, even though faces appear on a large share of videos in the sample.
The differences show up when the report breaks down the data:
In its channel-size breakdown, it finds that adding a face only helped channels above a certain subscriber threshold, and even then the lift was modest.
In its niche segmentation, it finds that some categories performed better with faces while others performed worse. Finance is listed among the niches that performed better with faces, while Business is listed among the niches that performed worse.
It also reports that thumbnails featuring multiple faces performed best compared to single-face thumbnails.
What YouTube Says About Faces In Thumbnails
Even if a thumbnail change increases CTR, YouTube’s own tooling suggests the algorithm is optimizing for what happens after the click.
In a YouTube blog post, Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie explains that the thumbnail testing tool runs until one variant achieves a higher percentage of watch time.
He also explains why results are returned as watch time rather than separate CTR and retention metrics, describing watch time as incorporating both the click and the ability to keep viewers watching.
Ritchie writes:
“Thumbnail Test & Compare returns watch time rather than separate metrics on click-through rate (CTR) and retention (AVP), because watch time includes both! You have to click to watch and you have to retain to build up time. If you over-index on CTR, it could become click-bait, which could tank retention, and hurt performance. This way, the tool helps build good habits — thumbnails that make a promise and videos that deliver on it!”
This helps explain why CTR-based thumbnail advice can be incomplete. A thumbnail that boosts clicks but leads to shorter viewing may not win in YouTube’s testing tool.
YouTube is leaning into A/B testing as a workflow inside Studio. In a separate YouTube blog post about new Studio features, YouTube describes how you can test and compare up to three titles and thumbnails per video.
The “Who” Matters: Subscribers vs. Strangers
YouTube’s Help Center suggests thinking about audience segments, such as new, casual, and regular viewers. Then adapt your content strategy for each group rather than treat all viewers the same.
YouTube suggests thinking about who you’re trying to reach. Content aimed at subscribers can lean on familiar cues, while content aimed at casual viewers may need more universally readable actions or emotions.
That aligns with the report’s finding that faces helped larger channels more than smaller ones, which could reflect stronger audience familiarity.
What This Means
The practical takeaway is not to “put your face in every thumbnail” or “go faceless.”
The data suggests faces are common and, on average, not dramatically different from no-face thumbnails. The interesting part is the segmentation: some topics appear to benefit from faces more than others, and multiple faces may generate more interest than a single reaction shot.
YouTube’s testing design keeps pulling the conversation back to viewer outcomes. Clicks matter, but so does whether the thumbnail matches the video and earns watch time once someone lands.
YouTube’s product team describes this as “Packaging,” which is a concept that treats the title, thumbnail, and the first 30 seconds of the video as a single unit.
On mobile, where videos often auto-play, the face in the thumbnail should naturally transition into the video’s intro. If the emotional cue in the thumbnail doesn’t match the opening of the video, it can hurt early retention.
Looking Ahead
This debate keeps resurfacing because creators want simple rules, and YouTube performance rarely works that way.
The debate overlooks an important point that top creators like MrBeast emphasize. It’s more about how you show your face than whether you show it at all.
MrBeast previously mentioned that changing how he appears in thumbnails, like switching to closed-mouth expressions, increased watch time in his tests.
The 1of10 data supports the idea that faces in thumbnails aren’t a blanket rule. Results can vary by topic, format, and audience expectations.
A better way to look at it is fit. Faces can help signal trust, identity, or emotion, but they can also compete with the subject of the video depending on what you publish.
With YouTube adding more testing to Studio, you may get better results by validating thumbnail decisions against watch-time outcomes instead of relying on one-size-fits-all advice.
