YouTube is overhauling its creator marketing tools with a new platform designed to make brand deals easier to manage and easier to scale.
The company has officially rebranded BrandConnect as YouTube Creator Partnerships, a more centralized system that connects creators, brands and ad tools in one place.
YouTube rebrands BrandConnect
While the name is new, the concept is not entirely new. Creator Partnerships is essentially an upgraded version of BrandConnect, YouTube’s long-running branded content and influencer marketing hub. The biggest difference is that the platform is now more tightly integrated into YouTube Studio for creators and Google Ads and Display & Video 360 for advertisers.
That means brands can now manage creator campaigns more directly within Google’s advertising ecosystem, rather than treating influencer deals as a separate part of their marketing strategy.
AI is now part of the creator matchmaking process
One of the biggest changes is the addition of Gemini-powered AI tools to help brands discover creators.
According to YouTube, the system can use data points like audience similarity, subscriber growth and even organic brand mentions to suggest creators who are a strong fit for a campaign. The company says the platform gives brands access to more than 3 million creators in the YouTube Partner Program.
Creators can also choose to share more channel insights with advertisers. YouTube says those who do are surfaced 60% more often in search results, which could improve their chances of landing sponsorship opportunities.
YouTube wants creator campaigns to scale like ads
Another major feature is creator partnerships boost, formerly known as Partnership Ads.
This tool allows brands to turn creator-made videos into paid ads that can run as Shorts or in-stream YouTube ads. In other words, a brand can take a sponsored creator video and amplify it using paid media without creating a completely separate ad campaign from scratch.
YouTube says this can lead to an average 30% increase in conversion lift, showing that the company is increasingly framing creator content as a measurable performance marketing channel, not just a branding play.