Creator Weekly: Google AI Mode, YouTube gambling content policy, Reddit draft post scans

Author

Peggy K
March 08, 2025

New this week: YouTube online gambling policy update & additional ad suitability reviews, Reddit draft post scans & stats, Google Search AI Mode.

This week Google Search’s AI Mode made a splash, YouTube tightened its gambling content policies, Reddit is scanning draft posts and providing stats, Pinterest is using your content for AI training, and lots more. 

International Women’s Day

Top news and updates this week

  • Google releases Search AI Mode.

  • Google Gemini’s “extensions” are now “apps”.

  • YouTube warns that scammers are using an AI-generated version of the CEO in private videos. 

  • YouTube tightened its online gambling content policy to prohibit any promotion of sites not certified by Google. 

  • YouTube launched more protections for teens.

  • For monetizing creators, YouTube will start conducting additional reviews for ad suitability starting March 10th to improve the accuracy of monetization decisions. 

  • Cheaper YouTube Premium Lite subscriptions are now available in the US, Germany, Thailand and Australia.

  • YouTube other news: tips for shopping content, no plans for produced content Originals, after 20 years it’s friends with Hollywood, and maybe music videos will be having a moment.

  • Instagram dropped a peek at its Edits video editing app and is testing Blend, a shared video feed between users and their friends.

  • StreamYard has a new dedicated Scenes tab to let you fully set up streams in advance.

  • You can report Twitch users for view-botting. 

  • Google Search Central has a refresher on robots.txt

  • Social link sharing site Digg is being relaunched by founder Kevin Rose and Reddit’s founder as an advisor. It will use AI-powered moderation tools. 

  • Reddit is adding real-time post performance data, will use AI to scan your post drafts for problems and will start warning users who upvote “violent” content. 

  • X Communities can now be sorted by trending and popular posts.

  • Pinterest will use your data for AI training unless you opt out.

  • Tumblr now supports the AV1 video format, allows including posts from your communities in the following tab, and is deprecating SMS for 2-factor authentication.

  • Google Meet now lets you use pre-set styles for AI-generated backgrounds. 

  • Google Calendar is more compatible with Microsoft Outlook. 

  • With the latest Pixel Drop you can transfer audio files to your phone to be automatically transcribed in Recorder, and Pixel 9 users can use the Connected Camera feature to live stream from remote cameras.

  • VSCO Canvas is an AI-powered “collaborative moodboarding” tool for photographers.

  • Plus more reading and watching about creators, tech in politics and more. 

Ten Years Ago This Week: Mobilegeddon

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing highlights from 2015. 

Last week, Google Search started on the path to a mobile-first index of websites with a change SEOs dubbed “Mobilegeddon”. And now we live in a mobile-first world. 

What’s next? Optimization for AI answers? Maybe so. 

What’s the next update? Tune in to Creator Weekly live on Sunday to hear about it first.

Creator Weekly Live 🔴
What do you think about this week’s updates? Join the live Creator Weekly on Sunday, 10:30AM Pacific time (6:30PM UTC). 

Take this week’s quiz ✅
What do you know about teens on social media?

New Tips and Tutorials

If you are a US AdSense publisher or YouTube Partner, you can use PayPal Hyperwallet as your payment method. This lets you receive your earnings by Venmo, PayPal or cash. See how to set it up.

Google’s AI Overviews for Search are getting an upgrade and a new experimental AI Mode. 

In the US, AI Overviews are now powered by Gemini 2.0, with an improvement in responding to questions about coding and advanced math.

AI Overviews are also now available when you aren’t signed in to your Google Account. 

AI Mode

AI Mode is a new Google Search Labs experiment (opt in or join the waitlist). It is designed to dig deeper into complex questions. Here is how Google describes it: 

“What makes this experience unique is that it brings together advanced model capabilities with Google’s best-in-class information systems, and it’s built right into Search. You can not only access high-quality web content, but also tap into fresh, real-time sources like the Knowledge Graph, info about the real world, and shopping data for billions of products. It uses a “query fan-out” technique, issuing multiple related searches concurrently across subtopics and multiple data sources and then brings those results together to provide an easy-to-understand response.”

You can ask follow-up questions to learn more or refine your search. The answers you get may be different (although not necessarily better) than a regular Google Search.

Google notes that it's still an “early-stage AI product.”

If you are a Google One AI Premium subscriber, look for an invite to try this out.

What’s it like? 

I did have Early Access to this feature and found it’s much more useful than the simple AI Overviews. Although any AI summary can be a little much when I’m just looking for a simple piece of information. 

Google has made sure that the output clearly links to web sources, which is heartening. Although it seems to favor articles written about events and updates rather than original sources (those are favored in the Search results too). 

And, as Casey Newton notes, it seems to do best when asked about “products, travel, or other things I could buy.”  Questions about politics or controversial topics may not get a useful response, although AI Mode provides answers for topics that don’t have an AI Overview.

An example: I did a search for “protest for science”. The main Google Search results had top news stories and videos from the Stand Up for Science rallies. AI Mode gave a summary of local rally information, key reasons for protests and the goals, all linked to news sources and official web pages. That was useful!

Seeing the way AI outputs are used by people, I don’t have much hope that people will actually click the links to get more context and make sure that the AI-generated summary is correct. 

That’s a concern I have with all AI tools, not just Google’s, because they all output in a very authoritative style, and it’s alluring to think that it must be a “true” answer, when the details may not even be correct. 

But I feel like AI Mode does a better job of rounding up information than AI Overviews, so that is a step in the right direction.

If you get access be sure to submit feedback to let Google know what you think.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

YouTube warned users that malicious people are pretending to represent YouTube employees by sharing private videos (including with AI-generated CEO Neal Mohan). The videos include phishing links. Google and YouTube will never communicate with you via private video!

YouTube expanded their online gambling content policy. Creators are not allowed to direct viewers to gambling sites or applications that are not certified by Google. This isn’t just about clickable links. It includes any visual displays, including logos, verbal references, and links embedded in images. And any content promising guaranteed money may be removed. Content depicting online casinos may also be age-restricted, which means it is only visible to over-18s signed into an account.

YouTube will start conducting additional ad-suitability reviews on new uploads starting March 10th. This is “designed to improve the accuracy of monetization decisions and increase your channel’s overall monetization potential.” This may take up to 24 hours.

If you are a YouTube Shopping creator, check out YouTube’s new pages of tips for selling your own products and the shopping affiliate program.

The YouTube algorithm for good? YouTube has worked with experts on identifying content that can be problematic for teens when viewed repeatedly, and has “developed ways to disperse viewership of those videos for teens globally.” Initially this included social aggression (non-contact fights and intimidation) and comparing idealized physical features. That is now expanded to unrealistic or bad financial advice, encouraging ridicule or cruel or malicious behavior and content portraying cheating, lying or negative pranks and stunts.

YouTube says they will not be going back to YouTube Originals or producing their own content. YouTube’s VP of the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) said “For us to be successful, we need other people to actually put the content in. Our commercial success will only exist with other people’s content. Our mission is to give that content to users around the world, but in order to do that, we need to have it.”

YouTube’s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, says we may see the renaissance of the music video. 

YouTube Premium Lite subscriptions are now available in the US, Thailand, Germany and Australia. This is cheaper than YouTube Premium, and only includes ad-free videos (other than music). It does not include ad-free music or music videos, downloads or background play.

Connected Cameras on the Pixel 9 phone lets you connect to a supported remote camera like GoPro or another Pixel. You can then live stream the remote camera to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube or TikTok from different angles.  Learn more.

Instagram previewed its upcoming Edits video editing app. It will let you manage multiple projects, let you isolate and track specific people or objects, and posting from Edits to Instagram will label the video as “Made with Edits”.

StreamYard introduced a new dedicated Scenes tab that lets you prepare all the stream elements (guests, screens, presentations) in advance.

On Twitch you can now report users for "Viewership Tampering" (i.e. view botting).

Kick launched a $100,000 fund for developers who build tools with the Kick API.

Do you know what the robots.txt file for your website is doing? Google Search Central has a refresher.

Social Media

This generation’s Digg is apparently --- Digg 2.0? For a brief while, link sharing site Digg was “the homepage of the internet.” Founder Kevin Rose is going to bring it back, with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian as an investor and advisor (among other internet folk). The modern twist? AI tools for “moderation grunt work” like removing spam and reviewing obvious policy violations.

Reddit is adding real-time performance data and post insights, including views, upvotes, comments, shares and crossposts, and awards received. And soon you will get hourly trends and stats about how it compares with your other posts and other posts in the subreddit.

Reddit is  adding a new LLM (Large Language Model AI)-powered scan of post drafts that can flag potential issues before you post. This is supposed to be better for posters, who can be more sure that they are eligible to post and their post follows the guidelines, and moderators, who may need to do less moderating.

Reddit will start warning users who upvote (“ within a certain timeframe, upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies”) violent content. Users and subreddit moderators don’t seem to trust Reddit on this, and conspiracy theories abound. It’s also concerning that Reddit does not seem to have considered what would happen if someone edited a post after people upvoted. 

Instagram is testing a feature called Blend that creates a shared feed between users and their friends. Videos are those sent to each other and based on interests.

X Communities now let you sort your feed by trending, popular (likes) or chronological.

If you are following what’s happening over on X, Social Media Today covers their latest Transparency Report, summarizing reports, account suspensions and post removals. Nothing too surprising.

Pinterest has a new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service going into effect on April 30. There is a new page of Commercial and Branded Content Guidelines. Notably, the new terms automatically opt users into having their data used for AI training. You can opt out in your Pinterest Privacy & Data settings. Learn more.

Tumblr made several updates: You can now include posts from your communities on your Following tab, you can upload videos in the AV1 format, and they are deprecating SMS for 2-factor authentication in favor of app-based authentication.

Communication and Collaboration

Features are available to free accounts unless otherwise noted.

Google Calendar can now process calendaring emails sent in Microsoft TNEF format, for better compatibility with Outlook.

With the latest Pixel feature drop, you can transfer audio recordings to your current Pixel phone (Pixel 6 and newer) to be transcribed automatically in the Recorder app.

More AI Updates and Tips

Google Meet’s AI-powered background generation option now has upgraded images and preset styles (professional office, bookshelf, stylish living room, cozy living room, tropical beach, fantasy castle, sci-fi spaceship).  This is available with Google Workspace Business and Enterprise Standard and Plus, and Gemini Education.

If you use Google Gemini, what was previously referred to as “extensions” are now “apps”. These help connect Gemini to your Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Keep, Calendar, Drive, Tasks, YouTube, YouTube Music, Flights, Hotels and OpenStax.

VSCO Canvas is a “collaborative moodboarding” tool aimed at photographers that uses generative AI. It looks like it’s meant to plan photoshoots by generating images.

More Reading (and watching)

Colin and Samir: An Honest Conversation with Johnny Harris (“Johnny and Iz Harris are redefining what news looks like on YouTube”)

Thanks for reading! 🌼