Suspense crime, Digital Desk : In an interview with Bussiness during the WAVES 2025 summit in Mumbai, Gautam Anand, Managing Director of YouTube Asia Pacific, shared that YouTube intends to improve income streams for creators in India using a combination of commerce functionalities, AI, and fan monetization tools.

Anand expressed, “Opportunities in commerce and shopping, brand deals, and fan funding with Memberships, Super Chat, and Super Thanks are immense.” These myriad methods of monetization, alongside the new payment features, enhance YouTube’s credibility as the primary platform for aspiring creators to achieve popularity and wealth.

AI tools escalate productivity by enhancing the creative process. YouTube is investing in Generative AI and enhancing the convenience with which creators share stories. These new tools assist with ideation, editing, dubbing, and even crafting backgrounds to set the scene. “India is home to so many stories. AI can enable so many creators to tell their stories even when challenges to space and physical resources exist,” Anand elaborated.

Indian creators, he feels, because of their unique and diverse style of content, will be the first to use features built with AI-integrated technologies.

Cutting Edge of Video Commerce with Myntra and Flipkart

India’s expansion into the affiliate commerce videos category began with YouTube’s Flipkart and Myntra partnerships in September 2024. Creators can now tag products in their videos earning them commissions depending on video sales. Anand disclosed that the initiative had surpasses Q1 expectations.

Following Soni’s elevation as Head of YouTube India, she most recently served as Group CEO at Zalora, where she led Myntra, giving her an extensive ecommerce repertoire.

Emerging Features and New Element in Subscription Business

Business strategy aside, YouTube’s subscription services surged past one hundred twenty five million paid subscribers globally. Revenue is shared with creators afterwards based on viewership by Premium members as ewquital Premium members spent watching.

In a bid to increase fighter engagement, giving one other household member access to shared privileges was tested in India, France, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Investment and Vision for India

During WAVES 2025, YouTube’s CEO Neal Mohan discussed plans to keep investing into the creator economy revealing an intent of ₹850 crore over 2 years. Over the last three years the platform paid out ₹21,000 crore to Indian creators and media companies.Mohan accentuated the importance of India to YouTube in the future. “India isn’t just a world leader for film and music – it’s becoming a ‘Creator Nation,’” he stated.

Anand further pointed out that some of the funds would go towards training users on monetisation and developing YouTube’s revenue framework further.

India’s YouTube Ecosystem: Enormous and Expanding

India has over 500 million users, making it the leading market for YouTube. Last year, over 100 million channels from India alone were uploading content, and more than 15,000 channels now have over a million subscribers. In 2024, Indian content received 45 billion watch hours from viewers across the world.

To YouTube, the Creator Economy is not a distraction, but enables the diversification of income by integrating.

YouTube’s advanced expansion plan showcases the nurturing of India’s creator ecosystem with the aid of AI and e-commerce to enhance creator success.

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