The COVID-19 pandemic began spreading across Asia Pacific in January, affecting millions of people directly—and billions more through restrictions on the way we live and work and the impact on the regional economy. 

Throughout the region, we’ve seen people and businesses adapt with resilience, determination and ingenuity, including adopting and developing new technologies. Today, some parts of Asia Pacific are beginning to ease social distancing measures and restrictions on commerce—but we’re still many months away from anything like a return to normal. 

Google’s focus in Asia Pacific has been on three priorities: contributing to the immediate health response, helping people learn and work from home and supporting the small businesses most affected. We’ll continue to do all we can to help every part of the region get through, and we’re committed to being part of the economic recovery, so Asia Pacific can ultimately emerge stronger. 

Contributing to the health response

Since January, we’ve worked to share reliable information on Google Search and YouTube, support public health campaigns, inform health officials and curb misinformation. We’ve extended these global efforts with more targeted local initiatives around the region. 

In India, we’re helping female internet “saathis” (or trainers) share authoritative health advice with their networks in rural villages. In Korea, the Google News Initiative is offering weekly sessions training journalists on how to identify misinformation. In Japan, YouTube creator Hikakin interviewed the Governor of Tokyo to raise awareness of social distancing measures among his youth audience. 

We’re also helping Asia Pacific governments and institutions make the most of our tools to fight the virus directly. The Philippines’ government is centralizing health communications using an AI system powered by Google Cloud, Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang has used Google APIs to create an app that tracks face-mask inventories, and we’ve worked with Singaporean nonprofit Better.sg to create translation tools for medical professionals caring for migrant workers. We started showing the locations of COVID-19 test centers on Google Maps, Search and Assistant in Indonesia, before extending the feature to other countries around the world, including India, Korea and the Philippines.

Alongside responding to the health crisis, we know we need to protect and support people who might be left isolated or vulnerable. Our team in India has helped local governments share the location of night and food shelters on Google Maps, while Southern Cross Care (SA, NT & VIC) Inc in Australia is using Meet to help aged care residents stay in touch with their families—two examples of how technology can help.   

Helping people work and learn from home

In many parts of Asia Pacific, people have been working and learning from home for months. Wherever possible, we’re adapting our global tools and resources to local needs—like giving 1.8 million students in the Jakarta region access to our G Suite for Education tools. We’ve launched local versions of our Teach from Home resource center—a partnership with UNESCO—across 13 Asia Pacific countries.

As teachers and students adjust, we’re seeing new approaches across the region. In Korea, public broadcaster EBS and the Ministry of Education are using YouTube to live-stream daily classes. In Malaysia, Google’s daily webinars for teachershave received more than 250,000 views. And in Australia, the inspirational Eddie Woo—a champion of teaching via YouTube—is sharing his experience and advice to help fellow teachers take their lessons online.   

Learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to have their schooling disrupted and their progress held back—so as part of Google.org’s $10 million Distance Learning Fund, we’re extending a $1 million grant to INCO. This funding will support nonprofits in mainland China, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines as they help underprivileged students with access to home learning. 

Supporting small businesses and helping local economies recover

COVID-19 has put many business owners under intense financial pressure, which is why we’re giving Asia Pacific businesses ad credits and other forms of support as part of a US$150 million commitment to the region. 

We want to make it as easy as possible for businesses to adopt new ways of working and manage through uncertainty—creating a dedicated website for Australian and New Zealand businesses, for example, or moving to an online format for Grow with Google skills courses like Indonesia’s Gapura Digital. We’re helping small businesses move their sales online and contribute to the recovery—like Yamaya, a Japanese sock manufacturer which is providing materials to help people make their own masks. And we’re working closely with nonprofits to help businesses most at risk from the economic downturn, including providing Google.org funding to help Youth Business International assist vulnerable small businesses and The Asia Foundation advance digital literacy in marginalized communities in Southeast Asia. 

Small businesses are an integral part of their communities, but they’re equally critical to economic growth, accounting for the vast majority of all businesses and up to 50 percent of GDP in most Asia Pacific countries. Just in the past few weeks, we’ve launched new programs supporting digital skills in Taiwan, developers in Korea and startups in Japan—and we’ll begin more initiatives like these in the coming months. Economic recovery will start locally and we want to be there to help.

In this global pandemic, everyone has a part to play. As Asia Pacific confronts the effects of COVID-19, we will continue to stand by the region’s people, business and communities for as long as it takes, and help rebuild when the time is right.

Viewer attention is shifting dramatically as we spend more time at home–and we’ve heard directly from many advertisers that are working quickly to adjust their creative and media strategies, especially to orient toward streaming platforms.

Today, we are sharing new advertiser insights and accelerating the launch of a number of tools–including Brand Lift measurement on the TV screen and more flexible formats for content casted onto the TV screen–to help advertisers navigate this rapidly changing environment.¹

People are streaming on TV screens more than ever

As people spend more time at home, we’re seeing major shifts in streaming viewership. A recent Comscore report highlighted that over 70 million US households are now streaming content on their connected TV screens.

Nowhere is this shift more pronounced than on YouTube and YouTube TV. According to Comscore, YouTube has the highest reach and viewing hours among ad-supported streaming services, and represents a quarter of all streaming watch time across both subscription and ad-supported platforms in the US.² Stay at home directives have amplified this shift to the TV screens, as overall watch time there has jumped 80 percent year over year in March 2020.³

Diversity of viewer passions and interests is what inspires people to stream YouTube on their big screens–from tuning into their favorite health and fitness videos to leaning back with a creator sharing a bit of their world to watching more traditional media outlets reinvent their content for this new reality.

Below, we’ve shared just a few of the top content growth areas across both YouTube and YouTube TV on TV screens during this time. While people are enjoying movies and shows to unwind, they are also watching live content from their favorite creators and cultural moments.

People are also gravitating to the consistently new and fresh content YouTube creators put out every day. In fact, over 60 percent of signed-in viewers of YouTube on TV screens watched a video published in the last 7 days.⁴

And, we see different user behavior when people engage with YouTube on the TV screen–it's often enjoyed with others, unlike the more individual experience on the mobile device. In a recent custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google, we found that 26 percent of the time, multiple 18+ viewers are watching YouTube together on the TV screen, compared to 22 percent on linear TV.⁵  

Making it easier to measure results across YouTube streaming platforms

With increases in watch time and an influx of daily visitors, brands in a position to continue marketing can make their budgets go further on YouTube by expanding their strategies to incorporate streaming.

With media mixes becoming increasingly reliant on streaming, it’s more important than ever to measure its impact. As a result, we’re accelerating the launch of Brand Lift for YouTube on TV screens. For viewers, this means surveys are now optimized for the big screen and interactivity with a TV remote, so people can easily respond or skip the survey.

This will enable marketers to make informed decisions about ad performance, and better optimize streaming campaigns in real time whether they are using Google Ads or Display & Video 360 for both reservation and auction campaigns.

Whether a campaign is focused on ad recall, purchase intent or awareness, Brand Lift will help make budgets go further. It will be available in the coming weeks for the YouTube app, and in early Q3 for YouTube TV. 

Bringing more formats to the big screen

As viewers spend more time watching YouTube on the TV screen, we are continuing to evolve to help advertisers better reach their customers where they are.

Late last year, we launched the YouTube Masthead on TV screens to help advertisers drive awareness with a large audience in a single moment. Advertisers like Uber are seeing success using this format to reach their audiences when they’re in lean back mode and where they are increasingly spending their time.

Travis Freeman, Global Head of Media at Uber said, “The Masthead on TV screens has been a critical component to build awareness for our #MoveWhatMatters initiative—which offers 10 million free rides and food deliveries for frontline healthcare workers, seniors and people in need. The Masthead, deployed in both the US and Canada, enabled us to easily amplify our message and reach our audiences where they are watching now more than ever.”

This year, we’re also bringing more format flexibility to streaming by introducing the popular skippable ad format for content that is casted onto the TV screen. As casting watch time soared by over 75 percent year over year,⁶ this provides advertisers a new way to reach their audience as they embrace the evolving ways consumers are watching their favorite content.

In a time when an eager audience is hungry for new content, YouTube is able to deliver fresh video to households across the world daily—within the niche or mainstream categories they love. By accelerating new tools and features, we’re committed to helping you grow your business in the changing world of viewership and streaming on TV screens. 

Reach out to your Google sales team to learn more about YouTube and YouTube TV on TV screens, and the new features shared today to support your campaigns.

2. Comscore OTT Intelligence, Oct. 2019, U.S

3.  YouTube Internal Data; US, March 2020 over March 2019 YoY

4. YouTube Internal Data; Global, March 11-April 10 2020

5. Custom Nielsen study commissioned by Google. Custom YouTube cTV match to Cross-Platform Homes Panel. Coviewing percentage is calculated as the percentage of minutes when a P18+ is watching with another P18+ in the same household. YouTube commercial viewership identified by matching served time of the cTV ping with Cross-Platform Homes Panel viewership during that minute. Linear TV is based on Live Total Day viewing of commercial minutes across all broadcast and cable networks. One minute qualifier. 11/5/2019-11/28/2019; 2/14/2020-2/29/2020. Results among US TV Households

6. YouTube Internal Data; Global, March 11-April 10 2020 over March 11-April 10 2019 YoY

Artificial Intelligence systems can recognize our voices, forecast the weather and help decide who gets a loan. Given the increasing ubiquity of AI, it’s important that everyone is able to understand more about it.

Like any system or technology, AI doesn’t always get it right. And understanding why AI systems break is often not easy for people who aren't experts in the field; research results are shared in dense papers filled with formulas.

Of course, people who haven't studied AI still need to be able to ask critical questions about these systems. To help support these kinds of discussions, we've created AI Explorables, a series of interactive explanations of key AI concepts. They’re specifically geared toward non-experts (even though we think and hope that experts will also find them interesting and thought-provoking). 

The first two Explorables walk you through an assessment determining whether an AI system is fair and unbiased. Measuring Fairness weighs the trade-offs involved in building a machine that diagnoses a disease—and lets you try tuning it to be fairer.

In another Explorable, called Hidden Bias, we examine a system that predicts student's grades. Biased by the data it has learned from, the system predicts lower grades for women. Trying to fix this by hiding gender from the system doesn't always work (and, in some cases, can actually increase the bias in the system). 

In the coming months we plan on sharing more Explorables on other fairness issues (how do feedback loops affect the biases of an AI system?), interpretability (why did the AI system decide to do that?) and privacy (what does it mean in the context of an AI system?).

People and AI Research (PAIR) is committed to making machine learning more participatory, and we believe that Explorables will help expand the conversation around machine learning and make it more inclusive. You can find more updates about Explorables and our other work at the (new) PAIR Medium channel.

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives around the world. In addition to the lives lost to the virus, as many communities enter the second and third month under stay-at-home orders, there is a rising mental health toll, too. In a national survey released by the American Psychiatric Association in March, 36 percent of respondents said that COVID-19 was seriously impacting their mental health; 48 percent were anxious about getting infected; and 57 percent reported concern that COVID-19 will seriously impact their finances.

As a trained psychiatrist, I know firsthand the importance of bringing out into the open the issue of mental health. While it might be years between the first onset of symptoms and someone seeking help, the internet is often the first place people turn to find out more about mental disorders. To help address the emerging mental health crisis we’re sharing “Be Kind to Your Mind," which includes resources on mental wellbeing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Whenever people in the U.S. search for information about coping with the pandemic, or on COVID-19 and mental health, we’ll show a public service announcement with tips to cope with stress during COVID-19. To raise awareness of the importance of mental wellbeing during these times, we'll highlight these resources on Google's homepage tomorrow.

With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, we want to highlight a few other resources and tools across Google and YouTube that promote mental wellbeing.

Self-assessment questionnaires for depression and PTSD

When people search on Google for information about mental health conditions we provide panels with information from authoritative sources like Mayo Clinic that detail symptoms, treatments, and provide an overview of the different types of specialists who can help. On the info panels for depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we provide direct access to clinically-validated self-assessment questionnaires that ask some of the same types of questions a mental health professional might ask. Based on a person’s answers, these self-assessment tools provide information on risk, along with links to more resources. Results to these questionnaires are not logged. We hope they can provide insight and help people have a more informed conversation with their doctor. We will add more self-assessment  questionnaires over time to cover more conditions.

Self-care content on YouTube

Over the last few months, YouTube has seen a 35 percent increase in views of meditation videos, and growing popularity of mindfulness and wellbeing content. YouTube is making videos like these and other mental health resources more widely available to anyone around the world, for free, by spotlighting channels and playlists that have wellbeing and mindfulness-focused content. Countless YouTube creators, like Dr. Mike and Kati Morton, educate their communities as they help reduce the stigma associated with mental health. YouTube is also launching relevant YouTube Originals, including a “BookTube” episode featuring top authors like Melinda Gates and Elizabeth Gilbert offering their best book recommendations.

Finding virtual care options, quickly

Because of stay-at-home orders and restrictions that limit in-person interactions, many mental health care providers (including therapists and psychiatrists) are now providing telehealth care, like conducting therapy sessions over video conference. To make these options easier to find, we now allow providers to highlight their virtual care services on their Google Business Profile. So now, when you search for a mental health provider in products like Search and Maps, you may see an “Online care” link that can take you to their virtual care page, or even schedule a virtual appointment.

While the stigma around mental health has lessened in recent years, many people still find it hard to reach out to get help. By providing access to mental health resources, services and information across our products, we hope to make it easier for people to seek help and receive proper care.