YouTube Tops $100B Creator Payouts, Adds New Ways to Earn

YouTube has announced that it has paid out more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies since 2021. Alongside the milestone, the company is rolling out new tools designed to make monetization more flexible and measurable.

One of the biggest changes is coming to long-form videos. Instead of locking in a brand segment permanently, creators will be able to insert sponsorships into “swappable” slots. Once a deal ends, that space can be reused or resold, generating ongoing revenue opportunities from videos. Performance data for each campaign will be available directly in YouTube Studio. Testing starts early next year.

Short-form creators are also getting updates. Shorts will soon allow brand links, giving creators a clearer way to show how their content drives traffic and sales.

On the advertiser side, YouTube’s Creator Partnerships Hub in Google Ads is expanding. With AI-driven recommendations and more structured support at industry events, the goal is to help brands find creators more easily and build partnerships faster.

Shopping is another focus. YouTube Shopping has grown fivefold year over year, with over half a million creators enrolled worldwide. To streamline the process, YouTube is introducing AI tools that automatically detect when a product is mentioned and display a tag at that moment. Broader auto-tagging tests will begin later this year.

The company is also expanding its shopping program to new markets, while bringing in major retail partners such as Nike, Best Buy, Etsy, and Michael Kors in the U.S., and Olive Young and ZigZag in Korea.

Together, the updates point to a broader strategy: making it easier for creators to monetize in multiple formats, while giving brands more transparency and ways to measure impact.