YouTube made the most announcements of the three at Made On YouTube on 23 September 2026. The ones that matter most for creators fall into three groups.

Shopping

YouTube says it will expand its Shopping affiliate programme to 35 countries by the end of the year, add more retail partners, including Amazon in international regions, and make product tags show offers localised to where the viewer is watching.

Series and feeds

• Shorts series Creators can now group their Shorts into seasons and episodes, with custom thumbnails and playback in order. YouTube began rolling this out on 23 September across web, mobile and TV

• Custom feeds Viewers will be able to build their own home-screen feeds from a written prompt, and save several of them. YouTube says this is coming soon

Creator tools

• Editing assistant A chat-based editor, powered by Gemini, in Shorts and the YouTube Create app, which produces a first draft and suggests trims and reordering

• Video A/B testing A coming test in YouTube Studio of up to three cuts of a video, to see which opening holds attention best

• Dynamic thumbnails YouTube picks the best of three thumbnails and shows different options to different parts of your audience

• Brand deals YouTube says Ask Studio will soon help creators write brief responses and pitch materials

It also announced live showdowns, real-time auto dubbing for live streams, and likeness detection coming to mobile.

Haberman notes that TikTok's summit had no major new features for viewers. Its changes were to TikTok One, the platform formerly called Creator Marketplace, where brands and creators find each other and agree paid work. According to Net Influencer, which covered the Los Angeles summit on 24 September:

• TikTok One Pay Brands pay through the platform and TikTok handles everything from invoice to transfer. Creators are paid within 30 days of a video posting, and TikTok takes no fee or commission

• TikTok One Plus An invite-only tier for creators TikTok rates as high quality. Members get exclusive brand opportunities and 15% more pay on Custom Collab work, at no extra cost to the brand. For now it is open to creators aged 18 or over in the US or Mexico with at least 100,000 followers

• Creator AI Search Brands can filter creators by audience, niche and how past posts performed, or describe the creator they want in plain words

Tubefilter points out that 30 days is quicker than the 60 or 90 days creators are often asked to wait. When Haberman asked TikTok about formats for 2027, the answer was about timing: bringing creators in early, including workshops where creators help brands plan a launch before a brief is written.

Meta Connect was mostly about AI and glasses. Haberman reports that the keynote centred on Muse, Meta's AI agent, which users can give access to their email and calendar to carry out tasks, along with new AI and VR glasses. In her reading, the keynote offered no clear signals for social marketing.

The creator news from Meta came earlier in the year. In June, TechCrunch reported that Meta had begun testing Series on Instagram and Facebook with select creators. It lets them bundle related Reels into episodes, with a series tab on their profile and a page where viewers can watch in order and save the series for later. Meta said it was looking at ways to monetise the feature but gave no details.

Haberman draws three threads through all three platforms: feeds built around interests rather than who you follow, a push towards bingeable series, and a continued need for creators, because brands find series hard to make on their own.

In practice, for creators:

• Think in episodes YouTube now has Shorts series and Meta is testing Series on Reels. A recurring format with a clear name gives viewers a reason to come back

• Know your niche Interest-led feeds and tools such as TikTok's Creator AI Search match creators to brands by audience and topic, not only follower count

• Check your payment terms If you take brand deals through TikTok One, One Pay sets a 30-day benchmark worth knowing when you agree terms elsewhere

• Look at shopping income The wider YouTube Shopping affiliate programme may open product-tag earnings in more markets by the end of 2026

This follows YouTube's Channel Search test, which let some brands view creator analytics. Brands are getting more data on creators before they book. Our creator management team helps talent keep their numbers, rates and terms in order. If you are a creator looking for representation, you can apply as talent.

For brands, the message from TikTok is to involve creators earlier, before the brief is fixed rather than after. Series formats on YouTube and Meta also suggest a move away from one-off posts towards runs of content, which needs more planning time and clear terms on usage.

If you are booking for the sale season, our Black Friday booking guide covers lead times and ad labels. For content made for your own channels, see our guide to user-generated content, and our creator and talent campaigns page explains how we plan creator work with brands.