YouTube expands shopping affiliate ecosystem in India

India's creator economy is moving beyond views, subscribers and brand integrations, with YouTube seeing creators increasingly build businesses around their communities and turn content into a discovery-to-purchase funnel.

At the centre of this shift is YouTube Shopping, which is expanding its affiliate ecosystem in India with Amazon, Ajio, Meesho, Snapdeal and Tata CLiQ joining the programme. The expansion comes as shopping-related activity on the platform continues to grow, with nearly 450 million logged-in users in India making active shopping-related searches on YouTube.

Gunjan Soni, Country Managing Director, YouTube India, said the creator ecosystem is entering a new phase where creators are building not just audiences but institutions, studios and networks.

“The creativity of the YouTube creator ecosystem is very widely recognised. But in 2026, I think what you're seeing is something even bigger and remarkable, which is genuine scale in distribution and institution building,” Soni said.

“Creators are no longer just making videos. They are building what you would call modern media studios and even networks in some cases.”

According to YouTube, India is now home to more than 20,000 channels with over one million subscribers each. Around 100,000 channels that are part of the YouTube Partner Programme have also been earning money for more than a decade.

Soni said around 200,000 channels and creators started earning money for the first time over the past 12 months, while the number of channels generating seven-figure earnings grew 20%.

For YouTube, the next layer of this creator economy is commerce.

From discovery to purchase

Soni said the platform's earlier hypothesis was that creator trust could change not just how Indians discover products but also how they buy them.

The latest numbers suggest that shopping behaviour on YouTube is moving in that direction. Nearly 450 million logged-in users in India made active shopping-related searches on the platform, while watch time for shopping-related content grew 55% year-on-year.

“Nearly 450 million logged-in users in India made active shopping-related searches on YouTube. This is not passive viewing. This is active searching and a desire and intent for understanding, and therefore goes back to the trust equation,” Soni said.

YouTube has also seen a 200% year-on-year increase in creators enrolling in its Shopping programme, with nearly 19 million Shorts featuring shopping-related products added over the last year.

Payouts to Indian creators grew 160% year-on-year in Q1 2026, according to the platform.

The expansion of the affiliate ecosystem is aimed at widening the range of products creators can recommend. YouTube's Shopping journey in India began with Flipkart and Myntra and subsequently expanded to Nykaa, Purplle, Shoppers Stop and Tira.

The addition of Amazon, Ajio, Meesho, Snapdeal and Tata CLiQ now gives creators access to a significantly broader retail catalogue.

Soni described the development as bringing India's retail powerhouses onto a “single digital shelf” for creators and viewers.

For creators, it means they are not restricted to one category or retailer. For viewers, the pitch is a shorter route from watching a recommendation to purchasing the product without leaving the YouTube experience.

The Marathi beauty shopper is changing

The impact of this shift is visible in the behaviour of regional audiences too.

Uma Nimbalkar, a Marathi creator with 1.77 million subscribers, said her assumptions about what her audience would buy have changed considerably.

Nimbalkar said she had earlier believed Marathi women, particularly her regional audience, would primarily spend on categories such as sarees and jewellery rather than skincare and makeup.

“But that has been changing and how. All those Marathi girls, and I don't know where they're coming from because even the really young girls, they're buying amazing serums. They are trusting Korean brands. They are just buying things which was not normal, actually, not even just two years back,” she said.

According to Nimbalkar, the change is also reflective of growing awareness around wellness, skincare and self-care.

The development points to a broader role for creators in categories where audiences may require education before making a purchase. Ingredients such as ceramides and active skincare formulations, for instance, have increasingly become part of mainstream creator-led conversations.

When a beauty video sells a walking pad

For Heli Ved, an actress and creator with 570,000 subscribers, the commerce opportunity can also come from products that have little to do with the primary subject of a video.

Ved, who has been creating content for 12 years, recalled a YouTube Short where she was walking on a walking pad for the first few seconds before moving into a beauty-related discussion.

“What would you imagine a beauty-based video to sell the most? Makeup products or skincare products. I sold so many walking pads. For the first four seconds of the video, I was just doing my steps,” Ved said.

She said viewers began asking for the link to the walking pad in the comments, turning an incidental part of the video into a significant source of product interest.

“People ask for links for everything you see on screen,” she said.

For creators, the development changes the economics of everyday content. A product does not necessarily need to be the central subject of a video to become part of the purchase journey.

Tech buying becomes a research exercise

For tech creator Aamir, who has 179,000 subscribers, the shift is particularly visible in the way consumers research products before purchasing.

Aamir said consumers are increasingly moving from repair to replacement, particularly as new models and brands enter the market.

“People are now not repairing, they are replacing things in tech also. First of all, tech is not a simple thing to buy. People used to repair, if their earphones got damaged, they would repair them. But now it is not happening,” he said.

According to Aamir, consumers are increasingly turning to online video before making decisions across categories.

“If they want to buy a diaper also, they just search on Google which diaper is better. So any day, I feel that the interaction of making a decision to finalise the product has changed,” he said.

Aamir said this was one of the reasons he chose to focus on home appliances as well, where consumers are increasingly comparing products before making larger purchases.

The result is a growing role for creators as product researchers, reviewers and explainers, rather than simply as promotional voices.

AI becomes another layer of the creator business

The expansion of commerce is also happening alongside a rapid adoption of AI tools among creators.

Aamir said AI is increasingly being used across the production process, from research and scripting to thumbnails and visual development.

“In 2026, if somebody is not using AI, I do think he is not doing anything,” he said.

However, he stressed that AI is being used to reduce the workload rather than replace the creative role.

For product-led content, he said there are still areas where a creator's own understanding and experience remain important.

“People who will be using AI better will be the leading people in future. I don't think AI will replace the creative work. It can help you break the task down,” Aamir said.

The combination of AI-assisted production and affiliate monetisation could allow creators to produce more content while building multiple revenue streams around the same audience.

From actor to creator-producer

For Ved, YouTube also represents a fundamental shift in the role of an artist.

Before becoming a creator, she worked as an actor across television and films, where the production process involved writers, directors, casting teams and other intermediaries.

“An actor is always dependent on the project, getting a good role, good character. It's always a struggle,” Ved said.

YouTube gave her the opportunity to take control of more parts of the creative process, from deciding the story and writing to production and presentation.

“I am writing, I am doing the whole shot division and everything. How my content should appear, the angle of the story. I am a storyteller. I'm doing everything, actually. I am the producer,” she said.

She also described learning skills that were previously outside her professional repertoire, including thumbnails and graphic design.

The evolution illustrates why YouTube sees the creator ecosystem moving towards what Soni described as modern media studios. Creators are increasingly combining storytelling, production, distribution, community building and monetisation under one roof.

The next phase of creator commerce

YouTube's expansion of its Shopping ecosystem comes as the platform looks to turn that creator-audience relationship into a more direct commercial journey.

Soni said the combination of creator trust, product discovery and affiliate commerce is creating what YouTube sees as “Creator Economy 2.0”.

The platform has lowered the eligibility threshold for its affiliate programme to creators with at least 500 subscribers, allowing smaller creators to access commerce-led monetisation earlier in their journey.

With a growing retail catalogue, millions of product-tagged videos and rising creator payouts, YouTube's commerce strategy is increasingly built around one proposition: audiences may watch creators for entertainment, but they are also turning to them when they want to understand what to buy.

As Soni put it, creators are building the “bedrock of trust” that turns communities into commercial momentum.

The next stage of India's creator economy, therefore, may not simply be about creating more content. It is about building businesses around the trust that content creates.