More than 140 million people used Ask YouTube in June 2026, a rise of over 500% from December, according to a YouTube vice president whose Made on YouTube segment Creator Insider published on September 25, 2026. The same four-minute segment set out Shorts series, Gemini-built editing tools and a voice model for likeness detection.

In Short

YouTube says more than 140 million people used Ask YouTube, its tool for asking questions about videos, in June, which is more than six times as many as in December. That matters to creators and to the brands that pay them, because the tool sends viewers to the exact moment in a video that answers their question rather than to the beginning. YouTube has not said how it counted those people or on which devices, so the number shows fast growth without showing how much viewing it actually moves.

What the segment contains

The video, titled "Shorts Series, Ask YouTube, & Creator Protection - Made On YouTube", was posted as a joint upload by the Creator Insider and YouTube Creators channels on September 25, 2026. It runs to about four and a half minutes across four chapters: discovery and Ask YouTube, Shorts series, creation tools, and likeness and voice detection. When the page was captured it had 9,450 views, 195 likes and 42 comments. Creator Insider had 919,000 subscribers.

The description identifies the presenter only as "YouTube VP Emily". Infobae, reporting from a briefing for journalists held before the event, attributed the same point about a custom Gemini model to Emily Moxley, YouTube's vice president of product management for viewer AI. The remarks were delivered at Made on YouTube, the company's annual product event, on September 23, 2026.

Much of the material is not new. PPC Land covered the event's creator briefing and four companion blog posts on September 24, including Shorts series, the conversational editor and the plan to add voice to likeness detection. The video adds three things the written record left out: a December baseline for Ask YouTube usage, a description of the model that locates answers inside videos, and a different list of creators using Shorts series.

A caution on the transcript: it is generated automatically and garbles several names. Gemini Omni appears once as "Ammy", and the creator Kinigra Deon, spelled that way in a YouTube blog post by Kurt Wilms, as "Kenigra Dion". It also credits an earlier Ask YouTube demonstration to someone it calls "Mina", whom no written material identifies. Names below follow the written sources where one exists.

Ask YouTube, measured against December

The central claim came in the opening minute. "This past June, more than 140 million people used Ask YouTube to dive deeper into videos, all without ever leaving the video player," the presenter said. "That's a jump of over 500% from December."

The June figure was already public. Sundar Pichai gave it on Alphabet's second-quarter earnings call, where Ask YouTube drew engagement from more than 140 million users on the watch page in June 2026. The December comparison is the new element, and YouTube did not supply the number behind it. An increase of more than 500% means June was more than six times December, which would put December below roughly 23 million. If the phrase was meant loosely, as five times, the base would sit nearer 28 million. Neither figure was stated.

Nor was the unit. The presenter spoke of people, Pichai of engagement from users, and the video description of "over 140M+ viewers are using Gemini-powered conversational search". None defines a use or says whether the figure is a monthly unique count.

Two surfaces, one name

That wording blurs a distinction. Ask YouTube is the name for two surfaces. One sits on the watch page, where a viewer asks about the video already playing. The other sits in the search bar, and on July 6, 2026, YouTube confirmed it had reached signed-in desktop viewers in the United States aged 13 or older, for English-language searches only, with mobile access and other markets to follow. The June figure belongs to the watch page, by the presenter's own wording and by Pichai's.

That surface changed considerably between the two months being compared. In December 2024, YouTube's conversational tool for videos was open only to YouTube Premium members in the United States. The first-quarter 2026 television update brought it to smart TVs and games consoles, reaching viewers who do not pay for Premium. At its health event on March 17, 2026, Google added a YouTube Ask button for health videos.

The presenter credited the model. "Behind that growth is a custom Gemini model," she said. She did not mention that the tool reached new screens and new audiences over the same six months. How much of the rise came from better answers and how much from wider distribution is a question the video does not attempt to separate.

Finding the second

The model, in her description, "maps a viewer's most complex questions to the exact second that your video provides the answer." YouTube has described its inputs before. The July FAQ told creators that clear chapters and descriptive titles help its systems match video segments to viewer questions, and that views from Shorts, videos and previews inside Ask YouTube responses count toward view metrics and Partner Program eligibility in the same way as other views.

A change in the underlying system is already scheduled. On September 1, Google said its agentic video understanding mode for Gemini Flash models would power Ask YouTube on the watch page in the coming months, with answers grounded in what appears on screen. The segment does not say whether the custom model it credits is that system, an earlier one, or whether the switch has already been made.

The commercial question sits at the second itself. A viewer delivered to the middle of a video bypasses whatever came before the answer, which may include a sponsor segment. None of the Made on YouTube materials say whether a pre-roll advertisement plays when a viewer arrives at a timestamp from Ask YouTube, or how YouTube Studio reports sessions that begin partway through.

Shopping comes next

Both headline figures predate the next phase. In a blog post on September 23, Johanna Voolich, YouTube's vice president of product management for viewer products, set out shopping capabilities for Ask YouTube. Searches for product reviews may return organised video recommendations, such as a comparison table of product attributes and categories shaped by a viewer's preferences. Follow-up questions about a product can continue on a video's watch page, and on television the exchange runs through voice commands. The 140 million and the 500% therefore measure a tool without any of this.

Google already sells a version of the idea elsewhere. Highlighted Answers, clearly marked sponsored links placed inside list responses in AI Mode, debuted at Google Marketing Live in May and appeared on the same second-quarter call as a monetisation driver. The Made on YouTube materials do not say whether comparison tables inside Ask YouTube will carry paid placements.

Shorts series and the television pitch

On Shorts, the presenter framed series as an extension of creator shows, which already let channels organise content episodically. She named three creators able, "for the very first time", to structure Shorts into seasons and episodes with custom thumbnails and sequential playback: Brandon B, Kinigra Deon and a third rendered in the transcript as Sam Echholm. Wilms, YouTube's senior director of product management for television, named two in his blog post the same day: Kinigra Deon and GOKKO CLUB. Only one name appears on both lists.

According to Wilms's post, Shorts series began rolling out to creators on September 23 across web, mobile and television.

The presenter's argument was about where Shorts are watched. "Shorts are more than a discovery engine to drive views to your longer videos," she said, adding that viewers are "also watching them together on the biggest screen in their house. They've become a content genre all on their own." YouTube disclosed in June that Shorts are watched for 2 billion hours a month on television screens.

Wilms's post supplied the supporting numbers. More than half of YouTube's top 100 creators have television as their most-watched interface, according to the post. Microdramas on YouTube passed 6.5 billion views in the first half of 2026, with watch time up more than 50% year on year, and views of microdrama content on television rose more than 90% year on year. These are YouTube's own figures, counted under its own view definitions, and the growth rates come without a base.

The format has measurable pull outside YouTube as well. Adjust and Sensor Tower data put ReelShort users in the United States at 35.7 minutes of daily viewing in 2025, against 24.8 minutes for Netflix mobile users. For buyers of CTVinventory, sequential vertical episodes on a living-room screen are a different environment from the swipe feed. None of the materials describe how advertisements are placed between episodes of a series.

Editing: agentic on stage, conversational on paper

The creation chapter began with Gemini Omni, which YouTube brought to Shorts and the YouTube Create app at Google I/O on May 19, 2026. "And in August 2026 alone, hundreds of thousands of channels used it per day," the presenter said. The figure matches the one in a blog post by Aparna Pappu, a YouTube vice president, published on September 23. It carries no absolute number and no definition of use.

Then came the pitch for what follows. "So far, a lot of the AI conversation has been about tools that make creation easier for you. Now, we're building tools that edit with you," she said. She described "a new set of Agentic tools built with Gemini to handle that back and forth", citing tedious tasks such as syncing the beat of the music to the footage.

The written materials describe the same product differently. The creator briefing calls it conversational editing: a creator starts a draft from a prompt, receives suggestions in a chat window, such as trimming pauses or reordering clips, and can edit manually at any time. According to Neal Mohan's post, the creator keeps chatting to choose from personalised suggestions. It rolls out globally on Android and iPhone from early 2027, according to the briefing. What was presented on stage in September is a product for next year.

The vocabulary is worth a moment. Agentic AI usually describes software that receives a goal, breaks it into steps and keeps working without a human approving each action. An editor that proposes a trim and waits for the creator to accept it sits closer to an assistant. The video's own description, written for the same upload, calls the chapter "Conversational Editing & Creation Tools".

Likeness detection: billions eligible, voice as a second signal

"Last year, we introduced a new likeness detection feature, providing more control over how your likeness shows up on YouTube," the presenter said. "And now, billions of channels are eligible to sign up for automated deep fake detection on YouTube."

The tool has widened in stages: to all Partner Program creators in an open beta at Made on YouTube 2025, to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates on March 10, 2026, and to all eligible creators aged 18 and over in May. Enrolment requires a government-issued ID and a short selfie video, which serves as the reference sample.

The claim of billions concerns eligibility, not use. Pappu's post makes the same statement, and neither source gives a breakdown or an enrolment figure. For scale, YouTube has said its Partner Program counts around 3 million channels.

The label on stage also compresses the mechanism. As YouTube's documentation describes it, the system performs a one-time scan of new uploads for an enrolled person's face and alerts that person, who reviews the match and decides whether to file a privacy complaint. The machine finds the face; the judgment on whether the video is fake, and whether it comes down, starts with the creator. That places the tool closer to facial recognition than to automated detection of fakes.

A model for voices

"But likeness is not just the way that you look. It's also the way that you sound," the presenter said. "We've designed a new model to detect speaking voices. It provides an additional signal to help safeguard your likeness."

The written version is more specific about the role. According to Mohan's post, YouTube will integrate speaking voice detection with facial detection to improve overall match accuracy, and the creator briefing places this later in 2026, as groundwork for broader voice protections over time. As described, voice supplements face matching. Neither the video nor the posts say whether a voice match alone, with no face on screen, will trigger an alert, which is the pattern of an audio deepfake built on a cloned narrator. Nor do they say how a voice reference would be enrolled.

YouTube already collects that kind of sample for a different purpose. Its personal avatars for Shorts are generated from a single recording session that captures both face and voice. Courts have also moved: a Berlin court ruled on August 20, 2025 that using an AI-cloned voice commercially without permission violated personality rights, ordering a YouTuber with 190,000 subscribers to pay 4,000 euros to a voice actor.

The last change is logistical. "We're bringing likeness detection directly into the YouTube app so you can set it up on the go, review matches, and take action with just a few taps," the presenter said. Taking action has consequences for others. In August, YouTube added four dispute categories for likeness claims, and unlike a copyright claim resolved through revenue sharing, blocked likeness content earns nothing for any party.

What the comments asked

The 42 comments under the video ran mostly to thanks and subscriber milestones. The most-liked visible comment, with seven likes, asked for a way to pin videos to the top of a feed. A few engaged with the substance.

One, from @thegamingbranch, took aim at the chapter title: "creator protection? Why do so many youtubers have to contact teamyoutube on twitter, due to an A.I mistake terminating their channel?" It drew six likes. The grievance has a documented history: in December 2025, Mohan defended AI moderation as creators reported wrongful channel terminations.

Another, from @Carla-GenX, went to the Ask YouTube number: "How many of those 140 are bots? How is youtube also dealing with AI slop?" A Kapwing analysis PPC Land covered in December 2025 found that 21% of the first 500 Shorts shown to a new account were AI-generated slop. The video addresses neither question.

Why advertisers are watching

Ask YouTube moves the unit of discovery from the video to the moment inside it, and its shopping extension puts product comparisons on that path. For brands paying creators, the open questions are what an entry at a timestamp is worth and whether comparison tables will carry paid positions. YouTube has not published usage by device, a December figure or a definition of a user.

Shorts series and the microdrama figures point where YouTube's television data has pointed all year: vertical video, sequenced and watched on the living-room screen. Most of what was presented on September 23 arrives later, in the materials' own phrasing: later this year, soon, or early 2027.

Timeline

Summary

Who: YouTube, through a vice president identified in the video description as "YouTube VP Emily" and reported by Infobae as Emily Moxley, vice president of product management for viewer AI. The segment was published by the Creator Insider and YouTube Creators channels and concerns viewers, creators and the brands that fund creator content.

What: A Made on YouTube segment stating that more than 140 million people used Ask YouTube in June 2026, a rise of over 500% from December, powered by a custom Gemini model that maps questions to the exact second of a video. It also covered Shorts series with seasons, episodes and custom thumbnails, Gemini-built editing tools described on stage as agentic, and a speaking voice model added to likeness detection, which is moving into the YouTube mobile app.

When: The remarks were delivered on September 23, 2026 and published on September 25, 2026. Shorts series began rolling out on September 23; voice detection is due later in 2026 and the editing tools from early 2027.

Where: Ask YouTube's June figure refers to the watch page, while the search-bar version is limited to signed-in US desktop viewers. Shorts series covers web, mobile and television.

Why: Ask YouTube routes viewers to moments inside videos rather than to videos, which affects how creator content is found, watched and valued, and its shopping extension brings product comparisons into that path. The growth figure lacks a December number, a definition of a user and a device breakdown, and the six months it covers also saw the tool reach televisions and new audiences.