YouTube CEO Neal Mohan: Building the Ultimate Stage for Creators

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan stated after the fifth Made on YouTube event in New York that the company's responsibility is to continuously innovate and build the ultimate stage for creators to tell their stories, allowing them to focus on creating moments that the world will remember. He emphasized that the platform remains a cultural hub due to the passion of creators and their communities.

This event announced over 30 new products and features for audiences, creators, and artists. The core for audiences is customizable homepages using natural language, such as generating separate tabs for commuting, nighttime documentaries, or DIY interests, initially launching on web, mobile, and TV in the U.S.; it also expands Ask YouTube to support follow-up questions, product comparison tables, and TV voice commands.

For creators, YouTube Studio is being developed into a production partner from draft to publication: it can provide rhythm, structure, and narrative suggestions for early-stage videos, generate thumbnails based on channel style, and test up to three different edited versions of the same video to see which retains viewers better. Shorts and YouTube Create will integrate a Gemini-based conversational editing assistant that can automatically remove pauses, rearrange shots, and sync music with prompts, while still allowing for manual editing at any time.

Live streaming has been enhanced: Live showdowns allow two creators to merge their live streams into a competition, with viewers supporting via chat, gifts, and super chats; new features include co-streaming, real-time reactions to long videos, and real-time automatic dubbing for cross-border audiences. The company has also renewed its exclusive live streaming partnership with Coachella.

The monetization aspect is also expanding. The YouTube Shopping affiliate program will expand to 35 countries by the end of the year, with over 1.3 million creators already onboard; creators in India and Brazil will soon be able to directly tag Amazon products, with product tags displaying localized pricing based on the market. Over the past four years, the platform has shared more than $100 billion with creators, artists, and media companies, and has launched over 3,000 product updates this year.

In terms of market mechanisms, advertisers buy attention inventory that can be segmented, creators sell testable completion and conversion rates, and the platform takes a cut from advertising, subscriptions, and fan donations. Custom feeds and A/B testing reclaim discovery and packaging rights back to Studio, reducing creators' motivation to direct their completed videos and traffic to editing tools like CapCut, TikTok, or others; shopping tags connect viewing directly to transactions, shifting brand budgets from traditional media plans to creator accounts.

At the same event, Mohan declined to join Meta's settlement of approximately $18 billion regarding youth mental health with multiple states, stating that the platform already has parental controls and can limit the time teenagers spend on Shorts, emphasizing that the proportion of viewing on large screens in living rooms is increasing, and that the product path differs from social media feeds.

Source: Public Information