It’s Wednesday and Zoom isn’t just collaborating with creators to attract old-fashioned human users—the platform wants AI chatbots to pay attention, too.

SHORT STUFF

The update: YouTube is updating its benchmarks for ad revenue eligibility. Beginning February 1, 2027, creators will need more Shorts views to qualify for that format’s ads, and the YouTube Partner Program will effectively double eligibility requirements for ads and Premium revenue sharing.

Currently, creators who get 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 hours of yearly public watch time or ten million Shorts views over 90 days are eligible to receive ad revenue via the YouTube Partner Program.

When the updated policy kicks in next February, however, new applicants to the Program will need either 8,000 hours of watch time over 365 days or 20 million Shorts views over 90 days. Current Partner Program members will not have to meet the updated thresholds.

YouTube is also updating eligibility requirements for Shorts ads. Starting next February, Shorts ads will be limited to creators with at least ten million Shorts views over 90 days. Partner Program members who fall below that cutoff will have their Shorts ads restarted automatically once they get above the threshold.

The context: According to VP of Creator Product Amjad Hanif, the stricter ad eligibility requirements reflect YouTube’s efforts to make “adjustments based on the amazing growth of the creator ecosystem over the past few years.” In a video hosted by YouTube Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie on the Creator Insider channel, Hanif expressed a desire to ensure that Shorts ads can produce a “meaningful” revenue stream for creators, since it takes millions of views to generate significant earnings from short-form content.

By making the Partner Program more exclusive, YouTube is also encouraging smaller creators to leverage revenue streams that offer more efficient forms of monetization. In a blog post, the platform noted that it is “broadening revenue opportunities for creators to reward growth, engagement, and more by introducing new incentive programs, rather than relying solely on ad revenue.”

POLL 📝

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AD WORLD

The ad launch: Nearly four years after its initial launch, Kick has officially launched ads on its live broadcasts. 

The Stake.com-affiliated streaming platform originally eschewed ads, opting instead to reward creators with an incentive program that scaled with watch time and smaller prize pools catered to homegrown talent. As Kick grew, however, the eventual introduction of interruptive ads became an inevitability. Now, that monetization stream has arrived at a pivotal moment.

The post announcing Kick ads notes that the platform now has over 100 million active users and hauls in more than 300 million hours of monthly watch time. That’s a lot of impressionable viewers, and 81% of them are between the ages of 18 and 34.

Given those stats, it’s no surprise that Kick—like YouTube and Roblox before it—is making the argument that its ads can connect brands to hard-to-reach members of the Gen Z cohort.

The challenges: That claim isn’t the only thing Kick now has in common with larger platforms.

With the introduction of ads, the young streaming hub will have to deal with the same challenges that have caused headaches for rivals like Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform has been compelled to give streamers more control over ad breaks while managing the overall length of those interruptions. YouTube, on the other hand, has experimented with ad formats that are less intrusive for users.

For now, Kick’s response to potential roadblocks is to wait and see. It wants creators to report inappropriate ads, but it is also telling them to expect variable break lengths. Its solution for poorly-timed interruptions is the stream rewind feature it introduced last year.

Kick may need to develop more sophisticated policies in the future—but for now, it’s time to see how much the platform’s hundreds of millions of monthly watch time hours are actually worth.

EVENT CIRCUIT

The sessions: Always wanted to attend VidSummit, but never quite managed to get there? Now’s your chance to see what the U.S.’s largest creator biz dev conference has to offer.

The VidSummit team and Tubefilter have partnered to bring you two full, hourlong keynote presentations from VidSummit 2025—one from longtime YouTuber Linus Tech Tips and one from Maha Abouelenein, a former Google executive and current founder/CEO of communications firm Digital and Savvy.

This is the first time VidSummit has pulled back the curtain for free to show people what they can look forward to if they make the trip. By releasing sessions online, VidSummit founder/CEO Derral Eves hopes folks can see “just how valuable” the convention’s programming is in person, he says.

He adds that the two keynotes VidSummit chose to release are prime examples of experts sharing actionable insights from years of entrepreneurial experience in digital content, branding, and marketing.

In his session, Linus Tech Tips goes through his strategies for building a dependable content creation business that will last; and in hers, Abouelenein talks about using your unique voice to scale and monetize your personal brand in a digital environment that’s crowded with competition—both human and AI.

The conference: These presentations are a fraction of the programming VidSummit offers each year. For its 2026 convention (which is set to take place Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Irving Convention Center in Texas), VidSummit will feature dozens of speakers, including Caleb Hammer, HopeScope, LegalEagle, Nick Nimmin, Monica Khan, and Jon Youshaei. Those experts will lead a smorgasbord of panels, discussions, workshops, networking events, and more for the conference’s 4,000+ expected attendees.

Grab your ticket here to secure your spot at VidSummit 2026.

FYI: VidSummit is a Tubefilter partner.

WATCH THIS 👀

The branded rankings: Aside from yet another FIFA-sponsored video (courtesy of Zhong), Gospel Stats’ latest YouTube Brand Report was full of faces and brands we haven’t seen in a while—and a few we’ve never seen at all.

🥇 #1. Zhong x FIFA: Who Can Stand On The Ball The Longest??? #fifaworldcup #ad (24.2M views)
Like nearly every video he’s posted for the past month, Zhong’s latest chart-topper was sponsored by FIFA. World Cup coverage has begun winding down in the wake of the tournament’s conclusion, but some fans are clearly still clinging to the excitement of the big event.

🥈 #2. Airrack x DraftKings: I Cheated Until The Arcade Banned Me (19.4M views)
In this 23-minute upload (appropriately sponsored by a betting app), Airrack and his “elite team of experts” tried their luck at Dave & Buster’s, where they attempted to win nearly 300,000 tickets. We won’t spoil the ending of the video, but we will say it wasn’t the only one backed by DraftKings this week. Overall, the app paid for ~20 videos, including a Joe Rogan episode featuring MrBeast.

🥉 #3. Andrew Bond x Best Buy: See color in a new way with the Samsung Micro RGB TV from @Best Buy #BestBuyPartner (18.6M views)
Tech creator Andrew Bond proved to be Best Buy’s top YouTube partner of the week, bringing in 18 million views with a Short that ranked at #3. This week’s #4 video, however, was also sponsored by Best Buy—and it wasn’t far behind in terms of views. That Short, from MIT grad Gohar Khan, earned over 15 million views for Best Buy by bringing viewers up to speed on dorm tech essentials.

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

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