Good morning. And Happy New Year! We hope you’re feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready for an overly crowded gym experience.
Got any fun New Year’s resolutions? Hit reply and share with us, and Syd will rate how likely she thinks you are to get it done.
Today: We’re sharing our Publish team’s predictions for the year ahead. Agree with us? Disagree with us? Have your own take to share? You know the drill: Hit reply (since you’re already sending us your resolutions anyway) and let’s hash it out.
Time to have some fun. 🔮
Hannah’s Prediction: Creator Brand Spend Grows IRL
Hannah predicts brands will spend more on creator events next year / Illustration by Moy Zhong
The very-online creator industry has long-championed the virtues of touching grass, getting offline, and setting up a place for creators to meet their communities face-to-face. If you were at Press Publish NYC in September, you know what I mean.
But in 2026? I predict more dollars to back it up. That influx of cash is likely coming from a variety of places: sponsorships, direct audience sales, and premium content. In-person events will become a more critical piece of creative businesses in 2026.
My thinking: Creators like Sam and Colby and Dude Perfect are using events to level up their work with sponsors. Both Samsung and Hot Topic told Digiday they invested more with creators for in-person events because of deeper fan connection, higher ROI, and improved content generation that comes long after the event ends.
The data is there too: Brands are increasing event spend significantly (74% of Fortune 1000s upped their experiential budgets in 2025) and creator spend is growing faster than other types of event media.
So get ready to pack your bags, slap on a name tag, and come up with a “fun fact” on the spot—events (and the marketing dollars behind them) are going big in 2026.
Syd’s Prediction: More Creator-Released Indie Films
Syd sees creators bringing more indie films to life / Illustration by Moy Zhong
If you’ve been following along with us this year, you’ve heard us say that Hollywood wants what creators have. Jake Shane and Benito Skinner made deals with streaming platforms for comedy shows, while A24 produced horror films by both Racka Racka and Kane Parsons—just to name a few.
My prediction? The next year will see us move beyond the traditional Hollywood structure with tons more creators putting out their own feature films, indie style. And it’s happening already, from romantic comedies by Jonah Feingold and Chalchitra Originals to Creator Camp’s slice-of-life indie to Grace Reiter’s The Hunger Games parody. These creators are self-financing and self-distributing, using funds from brand deals and YouTube AdSense—not Hollywood studios—to foot the bill.
As creators divide and conquer, Hollywood is doing the opposite. Netflix’s $82.7 billion proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. has made the already-small circle of studios even smaller, potentially leading to shorter theatrical windows and fewer greenlit projects.
With millions of views and the good faith of their audiences behind them, we should expect to see many more creators release projects independently—leaving Hollywood to catch up.
Colin’s Prediction: Netflix Launches a “Creator Model” for UGC
Colin thinks Netflix will open up its model to more UGC / Illustration by Moy Zhong
Netflix’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. took over my feed at the end of this year, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the quieter moves they were making—with creators.
First, Netflix secured select podcasts from Spotify, removing the video versions from YouTube.
Then, Mark Rober’s lightly repackaged hits became a top 10 show on Netflix and the No. 1 show for kids.
More recently, Matty Matheson announced that season 3 of his YouTube cooking show, Just a Dash, would be moving over to Netflix.
Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros. is an attempt to consolidate the "old guard" and some very valuable IP. But their most formidable opponent in TV watch time isn’t the old guard. It’s YouTube, with 13.4% of television watchtime (compared to Netflix’s 8.8%). Netflix can’t buy YouTube, but they can try and emulate its model.
My prediction for 2026? I think we’ll see streamers take on a dual-tier approach to creators next year:
An "Open Tier" with looser guidelines for creators who make episodic content. I see a modest revenue split and content largely supporting ad tiers.
A "Creator Plus" tier for more established creators like Jesser, Dude Perfect, and Michelle Khare. Platforms like Netflix could license their libraries of evergreen shows and commission originals just as they did with Rober. Then? YouTube essentially becomes a Netflix incubator.
Samir’s Prediction: YouTube Forces Creator Ads To Evolve
Samir says creator ads will start to look like athlete endorsement deals / Illustration by Moy Zhong
I’ll come right out with my prediction: As YouTube continues to be the dominant platform on connected TVs, the creator ad product will evolve away from host-read integrations.
Why? CTV viewing favors familiarity, brand safety, and long-term relationships—meaning fewer one-off integrations optimized for clicking the link in the description. That shift will change how brands think about creators.
So in 2026, creator advertising will look increasingly like athlete endorsement deals. Expect more category exclusivity, year-long partnerships, and “presented by” relationships (TBPN is a good example). We’ll also see creators appear in ads that run across YouTube, especially on TV screens, whether or not those ads live on creators’ own channels as pre-roll and mid-roll inventory.
As this model scales, there are ripple effects. If creators are now the creatives, native execution matters…someone has to actually make the ads. That opens the door for creator-led creative agencies. Many creators don’t want to run media companies—they want to make videos and collaborate creatively, not manage teams or publish videos on rigid schedules. The agency model offers a middle ground: Apply creator instincts to YouTube-native ads without having to build and sustain your own show…see Anthpo’s Pufferfish agency. Two predictions for the price of one.
