The winners and losers of YouTube’s view count and monetization overhaul

August 20, 2026 Earlier this year, YouTube made a major infrastructure play to help iron out the operational layer of the creator economy. In the last week, the platform announced two major changes that will affect how creators are monetized and measured. On August 24, YouTube will change how it counts views, registering a video view from the moment it starts to play (YouTube applied this to its Shorts views back in 2025). Advertisement TOP STORY The Creator Economy The winners and losers of YouTube's view count and monetization overhaul YouTube is changing how it measure views and raising the bar for creators to get monetized. Who wins and who loses? ‘They haven’t been given the receipts’: Why one brand is auditing its DSPs for greater transparency. Buoyed by the shift of sports programming to streaming, ad spend on digital video continues to climb, but that growth comes with greater scrutiny around transparency and business outcomes. Partner insights from Blockboard. The leader of a friend group is the influencer who moves money. Social influencers change what people think. But another kind of influencer — the leader of the friend group — is visible only in payment data and changes what people spend. That’s the audience worth competing for. Partner insights from PayPal Ads. Join us Sept. 24 in NYC for AI Marketing Strategies and hear directly from marketing leaders at Samsung America, Bayer, David’s Bridal and more about how they’re putting AI to work. Secure the early rate by Sept. 1. THE BUSINESS OF AI The Business of AI Creators are moving into brands’ AI search playbooks As brands race to show up in AI-generated answers, creators are becoming part of the strategy. Member exclusive Media Briefing: Ads for AI agents have a measurement problem A wave of startups is racing to solve AI ad measurement and attribution as publishers and advertisers experiment with serving ads to agents. PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM BLIS Advertising’s most comprehensive signal is also its most accurate Carrier data provides a robust, privacy-centric audience view based on insights from the most frequently used device that rarely leaves people’s sides. Advertisers can then unlock a much more complete and accurate view of their consumers. A MESSAGE FROM GOOGLE How publishers can strengthen connections with advertisers in the AI era Today’s audiences are highly decentralized — searching, streaming, scrolling and shopping across a spectrum of platforms. To maximize yield across this complex landscape, publishers must clearly demonstrate the unique contextual value of their properties and audiences. Learn more MARKETING The Programmatic Marketer Butler/Till extends agentic media buying tests into audio with iHeartMedia Tests of autonomous media buying tools are spreading into more channels; publishers hope they can make direct buys easier and more attractive to advertisers. Strategizing for the Future Target plans to lower prices after receiving almost $1 billion in tariff refunds Tariff refunds were a massive tailwind for Target last quarter that could help it continue to lower prices. PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM TALON ONE Guide: WTF is agentic commerce? Agentic commerce differs from earlier forms of automated shopping in that AI agents don’t wait for human input to approve each step. They set a goal, evaluate options against structured criteria and execute on it. Advertisement PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM OPTABLE Step-by-step guide to assessing agentic readiness and adopting at scale A buyer agent evaluating inventory is only as informed as the data a seller agent can surface. Becoming agent-ready now sets publishers up for a smooth transition into agentic buying and selling. ICYMI Brands in Culture Brand marketers are adopting fan-first social media strategies Bigger brands are picking up a social playbook perfected by startup and scaleup marketers, having seen the results. But can it work at scale? Written by Jim Cooper and Sara Jerde Were you forwarded this email? Sign up to get it daily. Advertise | Digiday+ | Events | Awards Update your email | Unsubscribe | Privacy policy