YouTube Expands Creator Partnerships Tools to Increase Monetization

YouTube is turning its creator-brand matchmaking system into a full-service partnership infrastructure, rebranding the former BrandConnect platform as “YouTube Creator Partnerships” and embedding it directly into the tools creators and advertisers already use every day.

The announcement, made ahead of YouTube and Google’s 2026 NewFront presentation, represents the platform’s most ambitious attempt yet to own the entire lifecycle of a brand deal, from discovery and outreach to content amplification and measurement, without either party needing to leave YouTube’s ecosystem.

At the center of the overhaul is Google’s Gemini AI. The system analyzes billions of data points, including audience overlap with a brand’s target demographic, how organically a creator mentions a given brand, and subscriber growth trends, to recommend specific creators that fit a brand’s identity and campaign goals. Brands can search using natural language prompts rather than manually filtering through creator databases or going through third-party agencies. With access to over 3 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program, the tool is designed to make discovery faster and more precise than traditional influencer marketing workflows.

For creators, the integration into YouTube Studio means partnership opportunities, analytics sharing, and deal management will eventually happen inside the same interface they use to upload and monitor their content. Creators who opt to share more of their channel analytics with brands appear 60% more often in search results within the platform, according to YouTube’s data, creating a direct incentive to open up performance metrics.

The company also plans to add the ability for brands to contact creators directly through the platform and for creators to edit and manage brand deal links without leaving Studio.

On the advertiser side, YouTube introduced what it calls “creator partnerships boost,” formerly known as Partnership Ads. This allows brands to take authentic creator content and run it as paid advertising across Shorts and in-stream placements using YouTube’s AI-powered ad solutions including Demand Gen, Video Reach, and Video View campaigns. YouTube says advertisers who promoted creator-led videos on Shorts saw an average 30% increase in conversion lift.

The measurement layer is where YouTube is making its strongest pitch against competitors. By combining organic and paid performance data in a single view, the platform lets both creators and advertisers see the full impact of a partnership. Brand Lift, Search Lift, and Conversion Lift studies are available within the system. YouTube claims it drives 86% higher incremental long-term return on ad spend compared to paid social.

YouTube is also opening the system to external partners through an expanded Creator Partnerships API, allowing select influencer agencies and SaaS platforms to integrate the same discovery, matching, and measurement capabilities into their own tools.

The creator economy has become a $37 billion industry in the US alone, and brands are moving large portions of their marketing budgets into creator partnerships. YouTube’s data shows that 83% of Gen Z viewers prefer watching their favorite creators over studio-produced shows, and 78% of viewers say YouTube has the most trusted creators for product recommendations. Perhaps most significantly for advertisers, 40% of a video’s views on YouTube happen more than a month after upload, meaning creator content has a shelf life that social media posts on competing platforms typically do not.

The move puts YouTube in direct competition not just with Meta’s Creator Marketplace and TikTok’s creator tools but also with the sprawling ecosystem of third-party influencer marketing platforms that have built businesses in the gap between brands and creators.