Creator Weekly: YouTube Likeness Detection, AI Search SEO Myths, Instagram Instants

Here in the Bay Area, it feels like spring is winding down and we’re moving towards summer. I’m ready for that warmer weather. 

If you are a student who is about to graduate, now is the time to move your data to your personal account (now including Photos). There are also cultural events to watch, and major updates for YouTube, Twitch, Search Optimization, Instagram and more.

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Top Updates This Week

• New creator video features are coming to Android 17, including screen reactions and updates to Instagram, Edits, and Adobe Premiere.
• At YouTube Brandcast, YouTube announced new Creator Shows, Affiliate Partnerships Boosts (YouTube Shopping), Custom Sponsorships and more advertiser features. 
• YouTube is expanding AI likeness detection to all 18+ creators. 
• YouTube DMs are now available in 31 European countries. 
• In YouTube Analytics you can now find estimates of co-viewers (people watching your videos on the same device). 
• YouTube is working on auto dubbing tools for creators and will add more languages.
• When you convert Google Slides to a Google Vids video you can add an AI avatar.
• The Edits app has new features, including transition controls, adjust sticker and text opacity and more sound effects.
• The TikTok GO program is now in the US, allowing creators to earn from hotel and attraction bookings. 
• YouTube is adding dual ingestion for live streaming across formats. 
• All Twitch streamers worldwide can now monetize, but only Affiliates and Partners can cash out. 
• StreamElements is negotiating to be acquired. Streamers are switching to other platforms for overlays.
• Google Search shared a guide on how to optimize your website for generative AI Search features, including mythbusting on what you don’t need to do (despite what “gurus” are trying to sell you). 
• Google Analytics has a new metric that lets you track chatbot traffic.
• Instagram launched Instants, a way to share unedited photos with friends that disappear after 24 hours.
• Threads redesigned their logo and added @meta.ai to answer your questions. 
• Bluesky post embeds now play video without opening a new tab.
• New tools for soon-to-be-graduates to transfer their Google Photos, Google Account Security, Google Form customization, and Gboard. 
• Plus find out what’s bugging me this week, and what project is worth viewing.

What to Watch this Week

live on YouTube

on Saturday May 16 at noon Pacific Time (21:00 CEST). There are contestant videos on the official Eurovision Song Contest Channel and Spotify has your Eurovision 2026 Playlist.

Tiktok is celebrating International Museum Day on May 18 with live programming from museums around the world.

If you are interested in Google I/O (May 19-20), you can register and create a schedule of sessions you want to view. Yes, it looks like it’s going to be all about AI. Watch the keynote live.

Quick Tip

Use Google Photos AI Remix to create a business selfie. It doesn't replace a professional photo, but it's quick and easy in a pinch. Yes it's AI generated, but unlike some Photos remix options the result actually looked like me. 

Creator Features Coming to Android

In preparation for Google I/O, Google announced a bunch of new features for Android. Android 17 features of special interest to creators includes:

• Screen Reactions: Record your screen and yourself as an overlay at the same time (typical reaction video style). Coming this summer, first to Pixel devices. 
• Improved Instagram Camera: Ultra HDR, video stabilization, night sight, optimized sharing. 
• Instagram for Android Tablets
• Edits video editing app updates: AI upscale photos and videos, sound separation (wind, noise, music) to boost or remove.
• Adobe Premiere app (coming soon), including exclusive templates and direct posting to YouTube Shorts. 
• APV Video Format : A storage-efficient pro format. Currently available for Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and vivo X300 Ultra, and coming to more devices with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor.
  

YouTube and Video

At Brandcast, YouTube’s annual event for advertisers, there was a focus on why YouTube is good for brands (of course). If you monetize, happy advertisers can mean more revenue.  And they announced: 

•  Creator Shows: talk shows, competition shows, travel shows, unscripted (“reality”) shows, microdramas, docuseries and edutainment. Looking at the descriptions, they all have a high production value, made-for-TV vibe.
• New promotional tools good for advertisers and creators, including
• Affiliate Partnerships Boost (boost organic content with a brand’s products tagged for YouTube Shopping). YouTube notes, “a win-win for Creators too, who earn with YouTube Shopping affiliate links”.
• Allow viewers to make purchases with Google Pay on their CTV (internet-connected television).
• Custom Sponsorships: “Uses AI to dynamically surface videos tailored to a brand’s desired moment”
• Multimodal AI Video Generation with Nano Banana, Gemini and Veo. If this sounds cool, try Pomelli marketing video generator in Google Labs.
• Masthead with Custom Content Shelf. This is the giant ad you see at the top of the YouTube Home page.

YouTube is expanding likeness detection to all creators age 18 and older. You can enable this in YouTube Studio desktop on the Content Detection tab. 

• Once you have gone through verification, YouTube will be able to detect altered or synthetic (AI) content featuring your face.
• Team channels should have each member added as a Channel Manager so each can onboard separately.
• If your face is detected you can easily submit a privacy removal request.
• This is rolling over the next few weeks.

YouTube expanded video sharing DMs to 31 European countries. To use DMs you must be at least 18 years old, and your channel must not be on a Brand Account. (Thanks for the tip Nina!)

YouTube now estimates co-viewers for unique reach stats in Analytics. That means if 3 people are hanging out watching your video on a television, that would be one view, but it increases your unique reach by 3. How does Youtube estimate those numbers? Creator Insider explains they use estimates based on “industry standards” (that is like the way Nielsen ratings for TV shows are calculated). YouTube notes this can be useful for creators negotiating sponsorships or brand deals.

YouTube has an overview of how automated dubbing works. The team is working on more languages, expanding Expressive Speech to more languages, and “building tools so creators can adjust and improve the dubs applied to their videos.”

When you convert a Google Slides presentation to a Google Vids video, you can now add an AI avatar. Google says, “Avatars are dynamically inserted throughout the imported slides to make the generated Vid feel more relatable and engaging.” But be sure you know your audience, as some people will be put off by artificial talking heads. This is available to personal accounts with a Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription and select Google Workspace editions.

Instagram’s Edits video editing app has new features: Duration controls on transitions (iOS only), change the opacity of text and sticker opacity, more sound effects, and support for iOS Live Photos.

TikTok expanded the TikTok GO program to the US in connection with the Local Feed that launched in February. When a creator features a hotel, restaurant, attraction or local service, that can be connected to booking platforms. There are opportunities to earn commissions on completed bookings.

Live Streaming

Dual ingestion for YouTube livestreams across formats allows customization of simultaneous vertical and landscape streams. You get two streamkeys, one for vertical and one for landscape. The downside: you need double the amount of  bandwidth, because you are sending two streams. 

All Twitch streamers worldwide now have access to monetization and community building through Channel Points, emotes, subs, Bits and badges, even without Affiliate status. But there is an important limit (that earned them a Community Note on X): Streamers who aren’t an Affiliate or Partner cannot cash out. Instead of getting a payment, “Spendable Balance” earnings can only be used to purchase Bits or Gift Subs on Twitch. Twitch also made it easier to reach Affiliate status, so this update may encourage more streamers to work toward that goal.

Is StreamElements shutting down? In January StreamElements set up a tip jar to help "keep it free".It sounds like that wasn't nearly enough (currently there are only 51 supporters). Amid rumors, they posted an Official Update on X, that they are “in positive discussions with potential acquirers and working to find the best path forward for creators, customers, and our team.”  If it is acquired it seems likely that some features will go behind a paywall, but that’s better than shutting down completely. Creators are talking about switching to Streamlabs, Streamer.bot and other platforms for livestream overlays.

StreamYard now lets you customize the position of overlays. 

Web Publishers

Google Search published a new guide on optimizing your site for generative AI Search features. The bottom line: your website should provide a unique point of view;  have non-commodity content that is helpful, reliable and people-first; add high quality images and video; write and organize content for human readers; and quality is more important than quantity. On the technical side, make sure your site can be crawled, has a good page experience, use JavaScript best practices, and focus on human readability, not perfect HTML code. If this sounds familiar, these are the SEO best practices Google has long recommended.

Google also does some optimize-your-website-for-AI mythbusting: If someone tries to sell you “secrets” or special tools to get your site to appear in AI results, first check to see how many of the recommendations are on the “what you don’t need to do” list.

• You don't need LLMS.txt files, special markup, or markdown
• Don't overfocus on structured data
• Don't bother with "chunking" content
• Don't rewrite content for AI
• Inauthentic mentions on blogs, forums, videos may be considered spam or low quality content

Google Analytics GA4 has a new AI Assistant traffic measurement that lets you track chatbot traffic from chatbots like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. Learn more about understanding your site’s traffic using Analytics Default Channel Groups.

Social Media

Instants by Instagram is a new way to share “spontaneous, unfiltered photos” with designated close friends or mutuals (people you follow who follow you back). It’s very Snapchat-like.

• The images disappear after viewing, and are only available for 24 hours, and friends can react and reply in DMs.
• Your Instants photos are saved in your archive for up to a year, and can be reshared as a Recap to Stories.
• There is also a separate Instants app (available in select countries) for quicker camera access.
• Apparently this new feature has caught some users by surprise, as they inadvertently sent unedited photos to all their friends. Fortunately you can Undo and retract images.

Threads has an updated ampersand-like logo and italic wordmark. Designer Chris Clare explain the thinking behind the changes, in part to make it more clearly separated from Instagram.

Meta AI is now available in Threads in select countries. You can tag @meta.ai and you will get an answer back. Just remember questions and answers are publicly viewable. Currently this is available in Argentina, Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. (There is a Community Note on the announcement that says “No one asked for this. We want voice notes back, not more AI”)

Meta introduced Incognito Chat with Meta AI in the app and WhatsApp. The conversations are private, and even Meta cannot access it. 

Bluesky post embeds now play video inline (so no need to open a new tab). It works in most browsers other than Firefox.

X is rolling out a History tab in the iOS app that includes Bookmarks, Long Videos, Articles and Likes.The idea is that you can revisit the content at your leisure. 

Premium Business subscribers on LinkedIn can now offer paid 1-on-1 consultations from their LinkedIn Profile, no third party platform for bookings, payments or video hosting required.

After shutting down after being overwhelmed by spam, Digg is apparently relaunched again as an aggregator of AI news posts. Jason Kottke says, “instead of an underwhelming Reddit clone, it’s now just scraping noted fascist cesspool “X” for AI news and telling us that Sam Altman is influential in AI? This is embarrassing. It’ll probably be a huge success.”

Tools 

If you are graduating 🎓, you can transfer your Google Photos photos, videos and albums from your school Workspace for Education account to a personal Google Account, along with emails and Drive documents.You can't transfer contacts, chats, or your YouTube channel.

Review the latest Google Account security features, and implement what you can: Passkeys, Recovery Contacts, and Password Manager.

You now have more options for header cover images on a Google Form. Previously you could only use a preset image, upload an image or select an image from Google Photos. Now you can also select photos from your Google Drive, Google Image Search or a URL. 

Google just announced a 3D emoji collection. Noto 3D emoji will be available across Google later this year (starting with Pixel phones).

Android Quick Share is expanding to be able to share with more devices. Pixel phones can now share with iOS AirDrop. It will expand to Samsung, OnePlus, Vivo, Xiaomi and HONOR phones later this year. 

Gemini can read your handwritten notes (maybe). Take photos of each page of notes, upload them to Gemini, and ask for a study guide or summary. 

If you use the Gboard keyboard on your Android device to convert speech to text, the new Gemini Rambler feature will rewrite what you speak, making it more polished. Personally, I find this a bit weird. I don’t need a polished message from friends, and I can follow some rambling.

The Microsoft Edge browser has some fresh new updates, mostly powered by Copilot AI. There’s a redesigned new tab page that “brings together chat, search, and web navigation in one place”. Journeys (in English only) organizes your browsing history to let you continue browsing where you left off. Plus Copilot can pull context from open tabs to better give you information in chat.

What’s Bugging Me

404 Media: At Least We Know the Washington Post Isn't Buying Views (This is about the new podcasts from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post Opinion Editorial department)
“Talented journalists—especially video journalists and podcasters—lose their jobs but the channels and feeds they created and built are zombified and repurposed for an executive’s passion project, staffed by people who have no idea what they’re doing.These projects inevitably also cost lots of money but with the added bonus that no one watches them. The project inevitably fails and is ignored into the oblivion. ”

What’s Cool

See America: Architectural photographer Carol Highsmith has spent decades photographing all 50 states (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico). The Library of Congress has a new interactive map to help showcase more than 70,000 rights-free photographs.

Spotify is 20 years old. To celebrate, open the mobile app and view Your Party of the Years to see your First Day on Spotify, First Streamed Song, total Unique Songs you’ve listened to, and your all-time most streamed artist. Plus you can find your All-Time Top Songs Playlist.