YouTube Brandcast 2026: what it means for Gulf advertisers

Brandcast, YouTube's biggest advertiser event of the year, was held in New York on 13 May 2026. Most of what it announced is aimed at large brands buying through YouTube's sales teams, and neither of YouTube's official posts said which markets would get it or when. The changes that touch more campaigns came around the event rather than on its stage: how ads behave in live streams, what Shorts ads can do, and how viewers can buy from the TV screen.

The Brandcast announcements

• Custom Sponsorships, where AI finds videos that fit a moment a brand wants to own.
• A Masthead with a Custom Content Shelf: the large ad at the top of the home feed, now with a curated row of videos beside the main creative.
• Buy with Google Pay on connected TVs, so a viewer can buy in two clicks with the payment details saved in their Google account.
• Affiliate partnerships boost, which lets a brand put paid media behind creators' YouTube Shopping affiliate videos.
• Video creation with Google's AI models, including Gemini and Veo.
• Retail data from Costco and Dollar General in Display & Video 360, which is a US offer.

YouTube's lead statistic was that when creators talk about products, viewers are 13 times more likely to search for the brand and five times more likely to buy. It comes from Google's internal data on 60 brands in February 2026, and a trade report gives a different sample for the same figures, so treat it as a pointer rather than a benchmark.

Ads that run beside a live stream

Side-by-side ads for live streams arrived on computers and TVs in September 2025 and began rolling out on phones in April 2026. Rather than interrupting the stream, the ad plays next to it, while the stream's picture stays on screen with the sound muted. They are served automatically as mid-rolls on eligible streams, not bought as a separate format, and they do not show on streams with captions turned on.

YouTube also holds ads back while live chat is at its busiest, and gives viewers who send Super Chats or gifts moments without ads. It says more than 30 percent of US live watch time in 2025 was on TV screens.

Shorts ads: comments and the mobile web

In December 2025 YouTube changed Shorts ads in three ways:

• Comments can be switched on for eligible Shorts ads, shown alongside the original Short's comments, and the advertiser can turn them off. Trade coverage says the brand's channel must be linked to Google Ads or Display & Video 360.
• Shorts ads now run on the mobile website as well as in the app.
• Shorts creators can link to the brand's website in branded content.

Ads longer than 60 seconds can also serve in Shorts. They play for up to three minutes and then loop.

Buying from the TV screen

• Shoppable connected TV ads became generally available in Demand Gen in January 2026. Google says Demand Gen campaigns that include TV screens drive an average of 7 percent more conversions at the same return.
• Pause ads, which appear when a viewer pauses a video on a TV, are bought only by reservation and only on connected TVs. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are among the countries listed.
• For big moments, Google has been presenting Moment Takeover, Moment Spotlight and Creator Takeover as ways for a brand to own a tentpole.

This matters here because YouTube on the television is large in the Gulf. Google said in October 2024 that YouTube reached more than 12 million adults on TV screens in Saudi Arabia and more than 2.5 million in the UAE, and a Kantar study it cited found YouTube plays a key role in purchase decisions for 87 percent of UAE viewers and 86 percent of Saudi viewers. Google has not published a newer figure.

Older than it looks

• Peak Points, which places ads at moments of peak engagement, was announced at Brandcast 2025, not 2026.
• Thirty-second non-skippable ads on TV screens date from 2023.
• Claims that pause ads can run in Demand Gen on phones come from agencies. Google's help page says they are reservation only and TV only.

What a Gulf brand should do

• Where TV matters to your audience, test Demand Gen with TV screens included and a shoppable format, and measure conversions over a longer window.
• Turn on comments for Shorts ads only if someone will moderate them, in Arabic as well as English.
• For Ramadan and other tentpoles, plan reserved TV formats such as pause ads well ahead.
• Before building a plan around any Brandcast format, ask YouTube's sales team whether it is sold in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

If you are planning YouTube activity around Ramadan or another big date in the Gulf calendar, ALXO would be glad to help you decide which of these formats deserve a share of the budget.