YouTube’s weekly creator update brings AI-powered Shorts tools to more markets

YouTube announced a series of product updates affecting live chat, channel memberships, Shorts creation tools and community features in a weekly creator update.

The platform will now display creator handles, instead of channel names, across live chat and channel memberships on the main app and YouTube Studio. Moderators will still be able to open a user’s channel by tapping the handle.

The platform is also expanding several AI-powered Shorts creation tools to more markets for users with English language settings. These include standalone clips, green screen backgrounds, AI Playground and photo-to-video. The photo-to-video tool supports custom prompts and speech additions. New generative effects that turn sketches into videos are available globally, and speech-to-song features and Dream Track vocals are rolling out to creators in the United States.

YouTube said it is bringing Google DeepMind’s V3 model to Shorts on mobile, expanding video generation from six seconds to eight seconds, with synchronised sound effects, ambient audio and speech.

In community features, the platform reported results from an internal September 2025 experiment indicating that channels with communities enabled saw higher post impressions and likes. Community features are now available on desktop, allowing posting, viewing and moderation from computers. Creators can pin posts to the top of their community pages, heart viewer posts, and share community links through the YouTube mobile app.

YouTube said additional updates will roll out in the coming months.