What's up, insiders? I'm Lauren, a program manager working on our product team here at YouTube and the producer of Creator Insider. Let's get into it. First, a Brand Connect update. Over the last few years, we built a wide range of tools to help better connect creators with brands so creators can form meaningful partnerships while continuing to create content for their channels. To help drive more collaborations between creators and brands, we're bringing together our creator and advertiser tools under one umbrella called YouTube Creator Partnerships. [music] So, what's changing? You'll see Brand Connect and our creator partnerships hub as YouTube creator partnerships going forward. None of the tools you know are changing. We're simply updating their names to create a more unified identity for the features that both creators and brands use. As of today, YouTube Creator Partnerships is currently available in seven markets. The US, [music] India, Indonesia, the UK, Brazil, Australia, and Canada. We're excited to announce that we're expanding access to more countries in the coming months. We're adding some new features and improving some existing ones to help you land more brand deals. First, we're improving brand deal matching and outreach. [music] YPP creators in more countries will be able to receive direct outreach from brands on potential brand deal opportunities in the coming months. We're also improving quality and recommendations to ensure your channel is surfaced to the right brands. As before, you can share a channel and audience insights with advertisers, brands, and thirdparty platforms, making you more discoverable to brands looking to partner with creators on brand campaigns. [music] On average, creators who shared channel insights and appeared in search results saw double the click or interaction rate on their profiles within Google's creator search tools [music] compared to creators who didn't. Lastly, existing features you already know and love, like media kit and open call, which is currently US only, but expanding to additional countries in 2026, are now part of YouTube creator partnerships to help you pitch your unique brand deal ideas and share more insight about your channel's audience. When YouTube Creator Partnerships becomes available in your region, if it isn't available already, all creators will see a new onboarding flow where you can add contact information and agency or manager details for your channel to make it easier for brands to get in touch. We'll leave more information below. Let us know if you have any questions. Next, a shopping update. We're unlocking new earning potential for creators at different growth stages by expanding affiliate program eligibility to YouTube partner program creators. Now creators with 500 subscribers who are part of the YPP program and meet all eligibility criteria for the affiliate program are now eligible to tag products and access affiliate features. For eligible creators, you can sign up under the earn tab in YouTube Studio, join the shopping program, and start tagging products in your new and existing content today. Best part, you'll earn commission when viewers purchase products. We'll leave more information below. Let us know what you think. And lastly, beginning this week, our head of content and community at YouTube Shopping, also named Lauren, will kick off a podcast series we're calling Workshopped, aimed at demystifying YouTube shopping for creators. Lauren will sit down with creators in tech, fashion, beauty, and home and lifestyle to answer what YouTube shopping is and how to use it, best practices around incorporating shopping into organic content, how eligible creators can best leverage the continued roll out of new product features and AI, [music] as well as hear success stories firsthand. Check out the first episode with Dr. Shireen Idris this Thursday. And that's it for this week. From the creators of YouTube to YouTube creators, we'll see you next week.