YouTube gives news channels video A/B tests, member hubs and voice deepfake alerts

YouTube announced new tools for news channels on 1 October, after its 14th News Working Group meeting in New York with more than 100 news partners. Brandon Feldman, director of news and civics partnerships, listed them on the YouTube blog. They cover YouTube Studio, paid channel memberships and protection against deepfakes.

YouTube Studio gets A/B tests for whole videos and Ask Studio

Studio, the dashboard where channels manage their videos, gets better Insights and Research tabs. It adds feedback on how a story is told and dynamic thumbnails. An A/B testing tool for videos is on the way. Ask Studio will let a newsroom search its own past coverage. YouTube did not give a date for each feature.

Paying members get their own hub and video previews

Channel memberships will get a separate hub in the app for exclusive content. People who are not members yet will see video previews. Members-only communities will let journalists talk with their supporters. In the part of the post on memberships, YouTube says creators received more than $1.5 billion over five years.

Likeness detection will also catch cloned voices

YouTube already offers likeness detection, which finds videos that use a person’s face without consent. Voice detection will now join it, and the tool will work in the mobile app. YouTube presents this as protection for journalists whose face or voice is copied in deepfakes.

The company also shared viewing data. People watched 35 billion hours of news on YouTube in 2025, and 12 billion of those hours on TV screens. The platform is also changing what it rewards: it will cut the reach of channels that repost Shorts with few changes, and it lets creators edit Shorts by typing instructions.

News publishers with a YouTube channel can check today which presenters are already enrolled in face likeness detection. Voice detection will cover the same people once it arrives.