YouTube CEO — 4 Big Priorities for 2026

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It's something that's been going on now for, I'd say, eight or nine years. And it's really a way for us to be very transparent with our entire ecosystem, of course, our creators and viewers, partners, and share what we think are the priorities for the upcoming year, some of the big trends that we're seeing. And the reception over the years has been so positive about it that we continue it every year and super excited to talk about a new one today.

One of the things, as you know, Renee, really well, is that we all as viewers, as fans, come to YouTube for these incredible cultural moments and really for the cultural zeitgeist, whether it's the Super Bowl, whether it's the Oscars, whether it's a new album drop. And increasingly, certainly over the last several years, creators really are at that epicenter of culture. They're building out their own studios, studio-sized lots in Hollywood. They have enormous fandoms all over the world and that is really our mission is to build up their businesses, build up their audiences and I'm incredibly excited about what our creators have in store in 2026.

We really do give this very broad canvas to our creators to be able to express themselves, share what they want with their audiences. So for example, Shorts is 200 billion views a day. That continues to be an incredibly fast growing format on YouTube and it's an area that you'll see further investment from us on in 2026. The living room continues to be an area of strength and investment for us. We're coming up on three years where we're the number one streamer here in the US. So in order to continue to maintain that position, we're going to invest in the product. So being able to, for example, on YouTube TV choose exactly the multi-view channels that you want or bringing more consumer choice. So multiple tiers within YouTube TV. So expect that. And then of course one of the core parts of YouTube is music and investing in music including the YouTube Music app, but also fan experience on the main app. So things like being able to discover new artists, learn more about the song that you're listening to.

We know that YouTube, from the really early days, has been a place where families and young people come to learn new things, to get exposed to new forms of creativity. Our approach always has been to bring those magical experiences of YouTube to young people, but to do it in a way where kids and teens remain safe on the platform. And we have a long track record of doing that here over the years. And 2026 is going to be no different. One of the areas that we've been investing in quite a bit is giving parents the controls that they're looking for and to be able to do that in a way that is simple and easy to use. We believe at YouTube that parents should be in control. They should be the ones that make decisions on behalf of their children, teenagers. So to make those controls sort of front and center and easy to use is going to be a big priority for us.