TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday, and “Baby Shark” just swam its way onto the stock market. Pinkfong, the South Korean studio behind the kids’ bop (which remains the most-watched video on YouTube), has officially completed its initial public offering.

Today’s News

PLATFORM HEADLINES

Facebook creators can use a new content protection tool to say “stop copying me”

The feature: Meta‘s ongoing effort to promote original posts has led to the development of a new tool that allows Facebook creators to identify and deal with copycat Reels. Initially available on mobile devices, that “content protection” tech is available for creators who are part of the Facebook Content Monetization program.

Once enrolled in content protection, creators will receive a notification whenever Facebook identifies a full or partial match of their Reels. At that point, creators can choose from among three potential courses of action: 1) they can track the matching Reel, 2) request for it to be blocked, or 3) release their claims on the original videos. When cases need to be elevated, a copyright takedown hub is available to settle ownership disputes.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because YouTube has offered a digital fingerprinting system of its own—aka Content ID—for the last 18 years. During much of that time, Facebook’s lack of a similar analog was a constant frustration for creators facing freebooting and other forms of digital piracy. A Video Rights Management service arrived at long last in 2016; now, Facebook’s new content protection tool applies the same matching technology to Reels.

The context: The improvement of Facebook’s anti-piracy infrastructure is part of a broader effort to promote original posts at the expense of low-effort reuploads. That battle began with algorithmic updates on Instagram, but Meta signaled its intention to bring the fight to Facebook earlier this year, when it vowed to follow YouTube’s lead by cracking down on “unoriginal” Facebook posts.

In many ways, the tech giant now faces an uphill battle of its own making. Meta has turned generative AI into a primary focus of its business, and in the process, has opened the floodgates for bad actors who want to cheaply and efficiently imitate popular content.

🌟 SPONSORED 🌟

Turn old content into revenue with OpusSearch

Top creators and brands spend tens of thousands of dollars on clipping campaigns—but there’s an easier (and more affordable) way to turn your existing long-form content into new TikToks, Shorts, and Reels. 

With OpusSearch, you can search, clip, and remonetize any content from your video library. Here’s how it works:

1. Search anything from your catalog
OpusSearch’s infinite memory bank can instantly find everything you ever said or done on screen. Search your entire video library by topic, speaker, object, and more.

2. Be first to every trend
With real-time trend analysis, OpusSearch’s AI finds what’s trending and searches your content library to find videos that fit. Then, it clips that footage into upload-ready short-form content.

3. Unlock the power of viral moments
Creators shouldn’t have to burn themselves out to stay relevant. OpusSearch identifies related clips to create compilation videos, highlights reels, and more—so you can keep up with the algorithm without constantly creating new content.

Top brands and creators like Logan Paul, Audacy, Diary of CEO, and Univision are already producing up to 7x more content with OpusSearch. Now, it’s your turn.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Beginning this week, any Roblox user who wants to access chat features must undergo what the platform calls the “Facial Age Estimation process.” (Tubefilter)
  
  

• RHEI is opening global public access to MADE, a platform featuring “emotionally intelligent” AI agents designed to assist creators with day-to-day management tasks. (Tubefilter - Partner Story)
  
  

• TikTok’s latest slate of mental health-focused features includes an affirmation journal, time management badges, and a background sound generator. (TechCrunch)
  
  

• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will serve as co-CEO of Project Prometheus, “a startup that will apply artificial intelligence to industrial manufacturing.” (TechRadar)

AI REVOLUTION

Google wants to cash in on AI. Its CEO still says not to trust chatbots.

The AI boom: Google is embracing AI at lightning speed. Over the last couple of years, it’s gutted Search, replaced it with AI summaries, and rolled out Veo (a text-to-video generator trained on YouTubers’ videos without consent).

Just yesterday, YouTube and Google parent Alphabet introduced the latest version of Gemini 3, an “AI assistant” that CEO Sundar Pichai described as “our most powerful agentic + vibe coding model yet.”

Amid the fanfare surrounding that launch, however, Pichai offered a few words of warning. The CEO told the BBC that there has been “irrationality” in the amount of money pumped into AI and that “when we go through these investment cycles, there are moments we overshoot as an industry.” If and when that bubble bursts, he said, “I think no company is going to be immune, including us.”

The bot problem: Pichai also admitted that there are ongoing problems with LLM chatbots. The CEO described AI companies’ failure to mitigate user harm as “tension,” and noted that Google has to be “bold and responsible at the same time”—but he also shifted blame to consumers, saying users of AI tools “have to learn” not to “blindly trust everything they say.”

We’re not inside Pichai’s head, so we can’t say what he was thinking about when he made that comment. We can, however, point to a recent string of wrongful death lawsuits filed against ChatGPT developer OpenAI, all of which were filed by families who say the bot worsened their loved ones’ mental health issues—and, in some cases, outright talked them into ending their own lives.

Despite those pitfalls, Pichai remained resolute that generative AI is “the most profound technology” humanity has developed, concluding that “we will have to work through societal disruptions.”

MONEY MOVES

Agentio just raised $40M to build the “infrastructure” powering creator marketing

The cash injection: For the third year in a row, Agentio has announced a hefty funding round. The AI-driven creator ad platform’s latest haul: a $40 million Series B that values the company at $340 million.

As its name implies, Agentio equips brands with “agentic” tools that automate key facets of the influencer marketing process. By working with a network of “many thousands” of creators, Agentio plays the matchmaker between forward-thinking brands and the social media stars best equipped to boost their messages. As a result of that process, brands like Uber, DoorDash, and CashApp have allocated “tens of millions” of marketing dollars to Agentio’s platform (per a press release accompanying the Series B announcement).

The context: Agentio’s latest cash injection comes amid a period of rapid growth for the influencer marketing industry. Brands are spending more on platforms like YouTube, with eMarketer estimating that U.S. buyers will spend $10 billion on sponsored content in 2025 alone. Findings from our data provider Gospel Stats have shown that the number of sponsorships on YouTube is up 54% year-over-year.

Agentio’s ability to facilitate those partnerships has captured significant interest from VC firms, with Co-Founders Arthur Leopold (formerly of Cameo) and Jonathan Meyers (ex-Spotify) kicking off with a $4.25 million seed round in 2023 and landing a $12 million Series A in 2024. This year’s Series B, which accounts for Agentio’s fivefold growth since its last round, brings the company’s total funding up to $56 million.

So, what’s next? According to Leopold, Agentio plans to use its fresh funding to continue building up its infrastructure. Pacts with companies like Meta are in the works, and Agentio aims to expand the size of its team from 35 employees to 100 in 2026.

WATCH THIS 👀

Cricket Wireless is highlighting rising creators (with a little help from top stars)

The web series: Cricket Wireless is teaming up with Issa Rae‘s Ensemble to launch Making It, a new web series that pairs established creators with hungry up-and-comers.

Across six episodes, the series will show what happens when digital tastemakers with significant social media followings—including Devan Anderson, Chizi Duru, and Kier Gaines—join forces with upstarts like Jerrold Smith, Charisma Lowe, and Isaac Williams.

The first episode of Making It follows Anderson and Smith as they discuss hot-button topics like “beating the algorithm.” Check it out here.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.​

Want to introduce your brand to Tubefilter’s audience? Sponsor the newsletter.

Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.