Changes to YouTube’s Features You Need To Know About: Made on YouTube Recap

On September 18th 2024, YouTube announced several huge changes to its platform at its Made on YouTube event. The various tools aim to “connect people, ignite creativity, drive businesses, and champion new voices.”

Many of these features utilize AI to enhance everything from content ideation to interacting with viewers. The roll out dates vary, with some updates expected in the coming weeks and others in early 2025.

The nine features are as follows:

Dream Screen Improved With Google DeepMind’s Veo

Dream Screen was introduced to YouTube last year as an AI-powered background generator for YouTube Shorts. YouTube has now partnered with Google DeepMind to integrate its video generator Veo into Dream Screen, so that creators of Shorts can choose between AI photo or video backgrounds.

In YouTube’s announcement, it explained:

“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.”

This exciting YouTube Shorts feature is set to become available later this year. In the meantime, YouTube is introducing more changes to Shorts – from October 15th, you can upload Shorts of up to three minutes long.

Communities

Similar to broadcast channels on Instagram, Communities is an entirely new space within channel pages designed to increase interaction between creators and subscribers.

In a blog post, YouTube explains: “While fans and creators can find each other in comments and the Community tab, conversations would often revolve around a creator’s latest video or post. We wanted to build a space where, for the first time ever, subscribers can chat with each other and the creator directly.”

YouTube is currently trialing the communities feature on a handful of channels in different niches and aims to roll it out further at the beginning of 2025.

Community Hub

Community Hub is a new imagining of the Comments Tab in the YouTube Studio app. Designed to encourage deeper engagement, the revamped page will have two main features.

Firstly, a “community spotlight”, which shows the number of comments and quantity of returning viewers. Secondly, creators will have access to a new AI-enhanced reply tool in their unique tone of voice. These tools will be highly valuable to larger creators who struggle to keep up communication with their audiences.

The Community Hub, with most features included, will become available in the coming weeks. The AI reply tool is reported to take longer to introduce.

Hype

Hype is described by YouTube as an “extension of the like button.” It will accompany a new “hype leaderboard” in the explore tab, separate from the trending page. When a viewer hypes a video, it becomes more likely to land in the hype leaderboard and be discovered by new audiences. I expect this feature to be received extremely well by small-to-medium sized creators struggling to grow their audiences and engagement.

This is currently being experimented with in Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan. The exact date for further expansion is yet to be confirmed.

Auto Dubbing

Auto dubbing is another tool aimed at widening video discovery, this time through increased accessibility. YouTube will generate audio tracks into multiple languages, removing language barriers so that videos can be enjoyed by new audiences. This tool will undoubtedly be useful to any YouTuber looking to reach global audiences.

YouTube states that this tool will be widened to creators in the coming months, and has said it’s currently developing the AI tool even further so it can eventually mimic the tone of voice, intonation, and background noises in the original audio.

Jewels

An enhancement to YouTube live streams, Jewels will be available for viewers to purchase and gift in real-time to their favorite creators.

Jewels has a lot of similarities to the popular gifting options available on TikTok lives. If this is anything to go by, Jewels may provide a lucrative revenue stream for creators who live stream.

This will first be rolled out across vertical YouTube live streams in the US within the next few months.

Inspiration Tab

YouTube Studio’s Inspiration Tab will be redesigned with a heavy focus on AI tools that can provide initial content ideas; hooks, thumbnail, and title suggestions; and even fully-developed projects in line with your style. This update is one to look forward to, especially for creators who struggle to find new ideas and those who post frequently.

Most of the Inspiration Tab updates will roll out towards the end of this year, with AI-powered hooks later in 2025.

YouTube Shopping

The YouTube Shopping affiliate program is already available in the US and South Korea, but YouTube is now planning to expand to Indonesia, starting with Thailand and Vietnam in the coming weeks.

Seasons and Episodes

YouTube will be allowing creators to mimic television shows by dividing their videos into seasons and episodes, which comes after an increasing amount of YouTube revenue originating from content watched on televisions. Creators of short films and artistic videos will benefit the most from this format, which will make it possible to create a variety of new content.