YouTube has expanded its course creation features, allowing more creators to offer structured, multi-lesson educational content for a fee or free, directly from their channels. This expansion, announced through YouTube's Creator Insider channel, follows an initial beta testing phase rolled out to a few creators.

With the new courses feature, available via YouTube Studio on desktop, creators can create learning content without relying on third-party platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi. They can either charge a fee for their courses or make courses available for free. 

Features included in the YouTube courses

Courses will be more accessible with a dedicated tab on the ‘Channel Page’ and can be accessed easily on youtube.com/courses. Courses will have a separate tab where users can find educational content based on their choice.

YouTube will also add “a special course badge on the watch and playlists page.” The platform claimed these badges make courses easily recognizable across various YouTube pages such as watch pages, playlist pages, and search results, and “when a viewer finishes watching all of the videos in your course, they’ll receive a badge, which appears in their “You” tab.”

YouTube says it will also allow interactive quizzes and discussion sections for creators to engage with their audience. Creators can design quizzes linked to their videos and create discussion sections where viewers can interact, share insights, and ask questions. 

Additional YouTube feature

YouTube will also roll out its live shopping feature, which enables creators to showcase multiple products simultaneously during a live stream. Creators can "pin" or highlight several products that will automatically rotate every 60 seconds throughout the broadcast. 

According to YouTube, this feature aims to make it easier to display and promote different items during live shopping sessions.