The company says the redesigned mobile experience, due in 2026, will lean heavily on short, swipeable video and new video podcast content, adjusting to enhance competitiveness with TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Long-form streaming alone no longer holds daily attention. Netflix wants its app opened more often, not just when viewers sit down to watch a film or series.

The redesign, announced during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, is being built as a long-term base rather than a one-off refresh. 

Co-CEO Greg Peters said the new app is meant to “better serve the expansion of our business over the decade to come,” adding that it will allow Netflix to “iterate, test, evolve, and improve” its mobile experience over time.

At the core of the change is a focus on vertical video. Netflix has been testing a feed of short clips since May, showing quick scenes from films and series in a format familiar to social media users. 

That feed is now set to expand. Peters noted where this is heading when he said, “You can imagine us bringing more clips based on new content types, like video podcasts.”

Netflix is no longer limiting itself to promoting shows and films. It is building a system where podcasts, clips and traditional programmes sit side by side, all designed to keep users scrolling.

The company has already taken its first steps into video podcasts. In January, it rolled out original shows hosted by well-known figures, including Pete Davidson and Michael Irvin. 

It has also struck deals with Spotify and iHeartMedia to bring established video podcast libraries onto the platform. This places Netflix in direct competition with YouTube, which is well-known for video podcast viewing.

Rather than presenting this as an imitation, Netflix has described it as a discovery. CTO Elizabeth Stone stressed that the goal is not to copy social platforms but to make it easier for people to find entertainment on their phones. 

Still, Netflix wants to become more like a daily habit, not an occasional destination.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos addressed the new development facing the industry during the same earnings call. “There’s never been more competition for creators, for consumer attention, for advertising and subscription dollars, the competitive lines around TV consumption are already blurring,” he said. 

“TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything. The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube…Apple’s competing for Emmys and Oscars, and Instagram is coming next.”

This reveals why Netflix is changing course. The company is no longer just fighting other streaming services but competing with every app that fills spare moments on a phone.

The strategy also has a commercial edge. In 2025, Netflix reported $45.2 billion in revenue, with advertising bringing in more than $1.5 billion as its cheaper, ad-supported tier gained ground. 

Short-form video and podcasts are well-suited to advertising, offering more frequent and flexible placements than traditional programmes. The company ended the year with more than 325 million paid subscribers.

The streaming company now allows creators to qualify with just three published episodes, 2,000 hours of consumption over the past 30 days, and 1,000 engaged audience members in the same period. 

A year ago, the bar was far higher, with 12 episodes, 10,000 hours of consumption, and at least 2,000 listeners in 30 days. But now, Spotify wants more creators, faster growth, and more video on the platform.

Under the programme, podcasters on Spotify can earn in two main ways. They receive a share of advertising revenue from users on Spotify’s free tier, and video creators are paid directly when premium subscribers watch their shows without ads. 

It is a model designed to reward engagement, not just reach, and it leans heavily on video as the next growth engine.

Spotify says the strategy is already changing how people use the app. “Since launching the program, monthly video podcast consumption on Spotify has nearly doubled,” said Roman Wasenmuller, Spotify’s global head of podcast, during a media briefing. “The average Spotify podcast user streams twice as many video shows per month as they did before the launch.”

YouTube tops the video podcasts space, Netflix owns premium video, and Spotify is trying to sit somewhere between both. Lowering the thresholds brings in smaller and mid-sized creators who may have been locked out before, especially those producing niche or long-tail content.

The company is also rolling out new sponsorship tools in April. These will let creators manage host-read ads more easily, from scheduling and updating placements to tracking performance. The tools will be available through the Spotify for Creators app and Megaphone, its podcast hosting and monetisation service.

Beyond in-app changes, Spotify is opening up its ecosystem. A new application programming interface will allow creators to publish and monetise video podcasts on Spotify directly from third-party hosting platforms. 

At launch, services such as Acast, Audioboom, Libsyn, Omny and Podigee have adopted the API. This is important because it removes limitations. Creators no longer need to rebuild their workflow just to earn on Spotify.

The development is backed by money and scale. Spotify says it has invested more than $10 billion in the podcast industry over the past five years, covering creator payments, infrastructure and tools. 

In the first quarter of 2025 alone, payouts to podcasters reached $100 million. By late 2025, the platform hosted close to 500,000 video podcasts, double the number recorded in mid-2024. About 390 million users streamed video podcasts that year, a 54% rise year on year, with time spent on video more than doubling.

Physical infrastructure is part of the plan too. In January 2026, Spotify opened Sycamore Studios in West Hollywood, a video-first podcast studio that will serve as a base for The Ringer network and be available to selected creators in the partner programme. 

The company already runs studios in Los Angeles’ Arts District, New York, Stockholm and London, offering professional spaces without the cost of private rentals.

The updates, revealed at the Made on YouTube event in New York on Tuesday, are designed to cut editing time, promote podcast content through short-form videos, and help audio creators expand into video.

One of the headline features is AI-assisted clipping. Creators in the United States will soon be able to generate suggested clips from their long-form video podcasts. 

These clips can then be transformed into YouTube Shorts, a feature set to roll out early next year. In turning lengthy episodes into quick, digestible content, YouTube is competing against TikTok and Instagram Reels, where short videos are most used in user engagement.

Another update, expected in early 2026, will allow audio-only podcasters to generate video versions of their shows on YouTube. Using AI, creators will be able to build customised visuals to match their audio, making it possible for those without video production resources to appear on YouTube with competitive content. For now, this feature will be limited to select podcasters, with more access planned later in the year.

The company framed these developments as part of its goal to make podcasts a central part of its ecosystem. YouTube says users now stream over 100 million hours of podcasts daily, with more than 30% of that time beginning as livestreams or premieres. Earlier this year, the platform surpassed 1 billion monthly podcast viewers, topping in a space where Spotify and Apple have also been fighting for ground.

Spotify, for its part, has been adding tools such as video podcasting, polls, Q&As, and monetisation features to retain creators and audiences. But YouTube’s deep integration of podcasts into both its main platform and YouTube Music, coupled with its scale in video discovery, could give it an edge.

“YouTube has been more focused on building out tools for podcasters over the past several years, making pods a more prominent feature on YouTube’s home page and its YouTube Music service alike,” the company noted during the event.

The updates also reveal YouTube’s strategy to use AI to reduce production barriers, strengthen discovery through Shorts, and keep creators locked into its ecosystem while competing directly with TikTok’s recommendation engine and Spotify’s creator-focused innovations.