India key to creator economy, to boost growth with AI tools: YouTube

India remains the home to the content creator economy and YouTube will continue providing tools, including leveraging AI, to improve their capabilities and help generate more revenues, a senior YouTube official said.

Talking to PTI on the sidelines of the first edition of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit, which started here on Thursday, Gautam Anand, Vice President, YouTube Asia Pacific, said the platform is investing in growing commerce and brand deals businesses.

"We remain the home of the creator economy. Over the last three years, we've paid out over Rs 21,000 crore to creators and partners, media companies and music labels here in this market that creates the foundation for the great growth of the creator economy.

"I think the numbers show that our goal is to continue to provide the best tools possible, including leveraging AI to improve creation capabilities for our creators and provide them with multiple ways for them to generate revenue," Anand said.

"Creators care about fame and fortune and if we can enable both of those then we remain the home for them," he said.

Earlier on Thursday, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced at the Summit the company's plans to invest Rs 850 crore over the next two years to accelerate the growth of Indian creators, artists, and media companies amid a boom.

YouTube saw over 100 million channels from India uploading content onto the platform last year with more than 15,000 of those having over 1 million subscribers.

Besides, last year, content produced in India racked up 45 billion hours of watch time from viewers outside the country while in the last three years alone, YouTube paid more than Rs 21,000 crore to creators, artists, and media companies across India.

Noting that India has always been one of the most important markets for the platform, which provides creators with multiple ways for them to earn and advertise, Anand said most of the revenue it earns through the partner programme is shared back with the creators.

Besides, there are new forms of monetisation while lots of brands and advertisers are shifting budgets into social and brand deals and the platform is looking at ways by which it can facilitate that connection between brands and the right creators as well.

"There are multiple revenue streams (including) advertising. On top of that, we're investing in growing commerce, growing our brand deals business, improving our fan funding product," he said.

There is a cross-pollination trend taking place in the country where content from the southern region is travelling to different parts of India, and gives the sense of a one-content market now, he said.