YouTube is building infrastructure for the full creator-brand partnership life cycle

YouTube is releasing a Gemini-powered Creator Partnerships suite of tools designed to help brands more easily find the right creators to work with and automate parts of the process like matching and campaign management. 

The tools, whose release coincides with IAB NewFronts, which kicked off yesterday, signal a concerted push to scale creator partnerships by automating much of the manual work involved. Brands will be able to find creators using agentic capabilities, inputting basic language prompts to find matches rather than manually searching for creators or going through a third-party for recommendations. 

Creator Partnerships will also eventually allow brands to reach out directly to creators on the platform, as well as edit and manage affiliate links sent to creators. 

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Rising gas prices could be the straw that breaks consumer spending

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail.

The escalating conflict among the U.S., Israel and Iran shows no signs of stopping soon, and that is being felt across the global energy markets. In recent days, prices at pumps across the U.S. jumped by about 30% and are headed toward $4 per gallon.

The rising fuel costs have experts predicting a rapid ripple effect on the U.S. retail industry, as concerns over transportation signal pressure on already-squeezed shoppers. With retailers still grappling with the effects of tariff-related inflation, shoppers could start to pull back on discretionary purchases as they prioritize fuel and necessities. For economic experts, the longer the war goes on, the more likely these outcomes are. This is especially concerning, as people head into the summer travel season, when gas prices have historically been higher.   

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