YouTube Unveils a Range of New Features at Its ‘Made On’ Event

YouTube has unveiled a range of updates at its “Made on YouTube” event, including AI video generation tools, AI-generated advice for creators via YouTube Studio, channel Communities, “Hype” to showcase emerging creators, and more.

The biggest announcement is the addition of Google’s Veo video generation tool into YouTube Shorts, which will enable background generation for Shorts clips.

As per YouTube:

“Imagine a BookTuber stepping into the pages of the classic novel, The Secret Garden, or a fashion designer instantly visualizing fun and imaginative design concepts to share with their audience.”

But even further than this, Veo will also enable creators to generate 6-second, standalone video clips for their Shorts.

“For example, if you’re looking through your footage and feel like you’re missing something to help tie it all together, you can effortlessly generate a singular clip that fits right in with the content you’ve already captured.”

So you can use this capacity to stitch your videos together, or you could post a generated video clip on its own. It’ll be short, at only 6-seconds max, but there could be some interesting generations come from this, providing more options for Shorts clips.

This is the next stage for AI generation, with Snapchat also announcing this week that users will soon be able to generate AI video clips in the app. Meta and TikTok owner ByteDance both also have their own working generative AI video models, though they haven’t released them in their apps just yet.

But we’re moving into this next stage, where it won’t just be AI images being shared across social apps, but video clips as well. And they won’t be just Will Smith eating spaghetti, AI video generations are becoming more and more realistic.

For example, here’s a look at some of the clips generated by Google’s Veo model thus far:

That capacity is coming to Shorts creators, which could lead to all new forms of creative expression in the app.

YouTube’s also updating its “Inspiration” tab in YouTube Studio, which can now provide AI assistance with video concepts.

YouTube’s been testing this out with selected users over the past few months, renaming the “Research” tab to “Inspiration” back in June. So this is not really a new concept, but it’ll now incorporate more AI elements, which will provide concepts, inspiration, and ideas with you based on your channel and your query.

YouTube’s also officially announced its “Communities” option, which will enable you to establish Channel-related groups to help enhance fan connection.

YouTube’s been testing out Communities with selected creators over the past few months, providing a dedicated space for fans to view text updates from the creator, while also sharing their own posts.

It could be a good way to help strengthen ties with fans, and learn more about what they want from your content.

YouTube says that it’s looking to expand access to channel communities in early 2025.

YouTube’s also looking to help smaller creators get more exposure, via a new program called “Hype.”

Hype will enable fans to allocate “hype points” to videos from emerging channels, which will then see them get more reach based on that interest.

“If a video's been out less than 7 days from a creator with under 500,000 subscribers, you can "hype" it – and go beyond liking and sharing. The more hype it gets, the higher it climbs on a new leaderboard with the top 100 hyped videos from the week.”

YouTube users will be able to give videos “hype” up to three times per week, while YouTube’s also looking to let people purchase additional “hypes,” with a portion of that revenue then going to the creators.

It could be a good way to boost exposure for smaller channels, enabling YouTube users to effectively vote on who they want others to see. It’s actually such a good concept that I’m surprised it’s taken YouTube this long to come up with it, but then again, it’s value will depend on users actually checking out that top 100 list, and actively seeking new content.

If YouTube can get that element right, then it could be a major addition.

YouTube’s currently testing Hype with users in Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan, and plans to expand the initiative “in the coming months.”

YouTube’s also testing “auto dubbing,” which will generate translated audio tracks for your videos in different languages, it’s adding AI-enhanced reply suggestions for comments, which will be tailored to your communication style, while its adding “jewels” and other gifts in live-streams, as an expansion of its Super Chat funding option.

YouTube’s also expanding its YouTube Shopping affiliate program to Indonesia, which has been a big adopter of online shopping in other apps, while it’s also providing more ways for creators to categorize their content for improved display on TV screens.

There’s a lot to take in here, and a lot to consider for YouTube creators, enabling more idea generation, and more revenue potential, along with additional ways to build their presence in the app.

And there are some potentially great concepts and tools here. I’m generally less on board with generative AI tools, as they detract from the human input for social apps, which is really the core use case. But AI video generation on YouTube could be big, and the fact that YouTube’s trying to build this in as a supplement to human-created content is also a good angle to take.

Many new things, many considerations. You can learn more about YouTube’s various updates here.