YouTube‘s staying in the Coachella desert for a few more years. The streamer will remain the exclusive free streaming home of Coachella through 2030, continuing its nearly 15-year partnership with the festival’s parent company Goldenvoice. The extension comes nearly six months after YouTube broadcast the Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G-led edition of the festival, which became the platform’s most-watched Coachella livestream ever.
During the event, the company introduced a suite of new features and tools for viewers and creators across its mediums. Some of its other new products include new custom feeds, AI-powered conversational functions across its YouTube and YouTube Music and new comment features, among many others. One significant launch: expanding shows to YouTube Shorts, allowing creators to format short-form videos into a structured experience with episodes laid out for viewers — or, in other words, format Shorts as microdramas.
YouTube said microdrama viewership surpassed 6.5 billion views in the first half of 2026, growing by more than 60% year-over-year, while microdrama viewership on TV screens increased by 90% year-over-year in 2026’s first half. Expanding Shorts into episode-like structures taps into the platform’s burgeoning living room audience, more than 35% of which watched YouTube Shorts on TV in July. The company is also infusing many of its products with AI.
The company’s new “Ask” feature, available across YouTube and YouTube Music, allows users to pose queries to an AI agent for things like shoppable items featured in videos, new music recommendations and carrying conversations across different YouTube pages. The “Ask” features will begin rolling out later this year. For podcasts, the company is rolling out a “podcast lineup” feature within YouTube Music.
The AI-driven tool allows users to get a spoken preview of shows and features an AI agent pressing users on why they like specific podcasts before pushing episodes to them. The tool begins testing later this year. The YouTube Music features were demoed by music creator Derrick Gee, who used the “Ask“ feature to dive deeper into Troye Sivan‘s single “She’s the Best” and the influences behind the track.
Sivan himself, who got his start on YouTube, came out for an interview with Gee to discuss the platform’s impact on his career. I would say to this day, because I learnt really, really early on that it was all about creating community and having such [a] direct line to people, and realizing that people are smart and people know and can feel when something is genuine.” For users, new features will appear right on their YouTube homepage. For its “custom feed” feature, which appears to be powered by AI, YouTube watchers can create new channels dedicated to recommended videos on topics they request to see, with the feeds remaining on their homepage.
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