--- title: 'New YouTube Features — Explained' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=md0Ud3omCdo' video_id: 'md0Ud3omCdo' date: 2026-07-28 duration_sec: 253 --- # New YouTube Features — Explained > Source: [New YouTube Features — Explained](https://youtube.com/watch?v=md0Ud3omCdo) ## Summary In a casual conversation, YouTube's Chief Product Officer Johanna Vulich discusses the latest platform updates, focusing on user interface improvements, creator tools, and upcoming AI features. The video highlights small but impactful quality-of-life changes and significant growth in creator earnings. ### Key Points - **Annual Refresh** [00:15] — YouTube performs a yearly refresh, this year focusing on better use of light in the app and updated icons. - **Like Button Animations** [00:57] — The like button now shows contextual animations, such as musical notes for music videos or a soccer ball for soccer videos. - **Comments Threading** [01:25] — Comments threading has been improved for more visual back-and-forth conversations. - **Creator Growth Stat** [01:39] — Year over year, creators making more than $100,000 on YouTube have grown by 40%. - **High-Resolution Thumbnails** [01:53] — Creators can now upload high-resolution thumbnails without needing to test resolution compatibility. - **Automatic Upscaling for Back Catalogue** [02:20] — YouTube automatically upscales older videos to higher resolution, with an opt-out option for creators who prefer the retro look. - **AI for Discovery** [03:32] — Upcoming AI features will focus on improving how creators get discovered by viewers. ### Conclusion YouTube is enhancing user experience with small delightful interactions and powerful creator tools, while hinting at AI-driven discovery improvements to further support the creator ecosystem. ## Transcript And I'm Johanna Vulich, Chief Product Officer. It's beautiful weather, a beautiful time. I'm Canadian, I've got to get my Tundra on. That's right, every year we try and do a refresh. and this year is no different. We've done things like make a better use of light in the app. We have updated the thumbs up and all the icons around a video. so just a lot of small details that make things easier to use and have everything else recede into the background. From the TV to mobile, there's just so many little quality of life improvements. but you're making them so much more delightful. Oh yeah, OK, so for example, you're probably talking about the Like button. Give it a thumbs up and it's a music video, boom, some musical notes or on a soccer video, boom, you get a little soccer ball! The adding and removing from a playlist is really improved. And one of my favourites and one that users have given us a lot of positive feedback on is comments threading. the back and forth conversation and comments, more visual. We're also doing some things for creators on the television. Well, first I want to tell you a really awesome stat. Year over year, creators who make more than $100,000 So this is booming not just for us, but for our creators. One neat feature we've added for creators is high-resolution thumbnails. and you kind of had to test whether or not your resolution was OK. Yeah, that's going to save me so much time in testing. What else are you doing for television? So resolution becomes a really interesting area in TVs because as TVs get better and better and cameras get better and better And so that's great for videos you make today. So as you know, YouTube has a really strong back catalogue business And so what we're doing is we're making the ability to automatically upscale your back catalogue into a higher resolution. but not everybody does. But I do know there are some creators who do like retro videos So we've learned to offer all creators an opt out. you can just go ahead and opt out. And then for viewers so you can know that the videos have been automatically upscaled for you. All right, Johanna, you know my favourite part of this is to ask you for spoilers but I'm always going to keep asking, so what's coming up next? because I don't want to spoil this video. So we talked a little today about using AI to make the display Maybe what I can tell you is that we have teams as well focusing on using AI to make discovery better. How do creators get discovered? So you might see some things in that area upcoming. You all know what to do. -And like and subscribe. -Yes please.