YouTube has had a long-standing commitment to invest in building the future of the creator economy — where technology empowers imagination, where every dream finds its voice, and every story finds its audience. In fact, data from research by Oxford Economics shows that in India, more than 700,000 creators and partners receive income linked to their YouTube presence.

Now, underscoring its commitment to help creators and artists bring their passions and ambitions to life, the platform is unlocking more ways to create, more ways to build communities and more ways to earn.

More creative freedom with more formats

The platform offers creators one of the widest canvases to creatively express themselves. Now, it is making it even easier for creators and artists to showcase their podcasts on YouTube and YouTube Music.

It has begun rolling this out to listeners in India gradually. New features in YouTube Studio make it easier to publish podcasts, while Podcast shelves on the YouTube Music homepage will help improve discovery for listeners and increase engagement for creators. With podcasts available for on-demand, offline and background listening on YouTube Music in India, it unlocks the opportunity to earn more on the platform via ads and subscriptions.

More pathways to make money

To make it easy for creators, top brands, and leading agencies to partner, create, promote and measure sponsored creator content, it is Introducing YouTube Brand Connect, its branded content platform to eligible creators and select advertisers in India. This will help brands execute their branded content campaigns more seamlessly by identifying the right mix and profile of creators to work with, while creators will have a new avenue to be discovered and earn more from their content.

The platform has been investing in ways to expand tools to make it easier for anyone to join in and create what they love. Earlier this year, YouTube introduced new creative tools on Shorts and announced upcoming Gen AI features that will make it easier than ever for anyone to express any idea.

As creators build their communities on it, fan funding features give them another way to grow their earnings while engaging with their audience. In India, the number of channels that earned a majority of revenue from Fan Funding products in December 2022 saw an increase over 10 per cent compared to the prior year