• by Laurie Sullivan , Yesterday

Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is about storytelling, and this year at the festival the "creator era" continues to gain strength. YouTube is offering additional data and services supported by artificial intelligence (AI), and Forbes is launching a way to help brands connect through a "Creator Network."

As AI enables new types of creativity, YouTube has introduced insight tools and features to offer a better understanding of performance and trends, especially when it comes to influence for products and services led by YouTube creators.

The tools and features, built with Gemini, aim to help brands and agencies gain the most from what the company calls the “creator marketing” era.

The new features for the tools were made available Tuesday at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.

The update for creator-led campaigns includes new trending insights in the U.S. within “Google Ads Insights Finder,” which initially launched in 2021. Today it offers a more granular look at what is popular on YouTube right now. 

Brand pulse report metrics now appear in Insights Finder, giving brands a clearer view of their paid and organic presence on YouTube.

The new “Content & Creator Insights API” provides much more data or information about YouTube creators and their audiences, enabling more effective media planning for agencies.

Gemini also will soon help to optimize Demand Gen campaigns on YouTube with creative insights, such as tips about the visual images that can help creators boost performance. 

These solutions give marketers visibility into emerging trends and viewing habits that help them plan campaigns, identify ideal brand-creator partnerships, and receive instant guidance to optimize campaign assets.

This move has always represented a fundamental shift where creators become entrepreneurs, but now more like Forbes have stepped in support them.

This year’s Cannes Lions event seems to be focused on creators. On Monday, Forbes launched a creator network, “Forbes Creator,” a new social-first network designed to match brands with social storytellers.

It extends Forbes journalism into the creator era by creating a network of creators, entrepreneurs, industry leaders and subject-matter experts to create engaging content that helps audiences that create narratives about the future of work, entrepreneurship, AI and technology, sports and culture, and more.

Sho Dewan, Erin McGoff, Griffin Johnsen, Joe Fenti, Shira Lazar, and Jenny Stojkovic are creators involved in the network’s debut.