Twitch in September 2026: Following Since disappears, featured clips end, and an AI coach
Twitch Updates Β· 2026-09-28 Β· Updated: 2026-09-28
After August's big AI training debate (see the August recap), September looked calmer on the surface: SUBtember, a lot of small creator tools, a busy badge month. Underneath, two removals annoyed a lot of people, and the AI topic simply moved to a new place. As every month, much of this first surfaced in the tos.gg newsletter by Zach Bussey, whose recaps 220, 221 and 222 are the backbone of this article.
π "Following Since" is gone for viewers
Since mid-September you can no longer see in chat how long someone has been following a channel. Streamers and moderators still can, through the Creator Dashboard and Mod View, but everyone else has lost it. Twitch's Head of Community MerryKish gave the reason: bad actors were scraping the data to improve their viewbots.
The community reaction was mostly frustration. Many suspect the opposite effect, that viewbots can now hide more openly because outside fraud trackers lose a data point. And there were practical uses too: people looked at Following Since to size up newcomers or to hand out gifted subs fairly. It continues a pattern, after the friends list and public following lists had already disappeared. Zach Bussey covered it in detail on tos.gg. The follow achievements on BadgeBase are not affected, I check follows through my own connection.
βοΈ Featured clips are no longer a choice
The second removal hit creators directly. Since late 2024 you could decide that only clips you had marked as featured were visible on your channel. That is over: the "Clip Visibility" and "Feature This Clip" toggles are gone from the stream settings, and every clip is discoverable the moment it is created. There was no announcement beforehand.
Twitch gave no reason. Zach Bussey suspects two: the clip feed in the mobile app needs as much content as possible, and clips that used to stay private are now also available for AI training. His verdict, in his article, is blunt: mid-sized channels with hundreds of throwaway clips now have to clean up by hand. If you have not looked yet, it is worth going through your clips once. And if the AI side bothers you, the opt-out from AI training is still worth setting.
π€ An AI coach looks at your stream
Twitch is testing a Stream Coach that gives creators automated feedback after each broadcast. It points out where engagement peaked, using clips as evidence, and makes suggestions in four areas: monetization, engagement, channel setup such as bio and social links, and Twitch features like raids and schedules. Twitch itself notes it is "for informational purposes only and may contain errors or inaccuracies".
The detail that stands out: according to tos.gg, the coach keeps analysing even if you have switched off other AI tools like Auto Clips or the stream summary. Useful for beginners who still have an empty bio, Bussey writes, but advice from an AI risks pushing everyone toward the same generic stream.
π£οΈ Dan Clancy: no AI labelling rules for now
At the Tokyo Game Show, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said the platform does not need rules for labelling AI content yet. YouTube, TikTok and Instagram require such labels, but on Twitch, he argued, the problem does not exist: streamers replacing themselves with AI "just isn't happening", and where AI shows up in a stream, viewers usually see it. If that changed, "we would absolutely do something like that". Clancy, who holds a PhD in artificial intelligence, also warned against writing policy in advance, because "you will get the policy wrong". The full interview is at GamesBeat.
π A malicious extension leaked 30,000 logins
The month's most serious item: a browser extension for Twitch collected the login tokens of around 30,000 users and passed them on to a Russian viewbot service, as security firm socket.dev found. With such a token, an outsider can act in your name as far as the connection allows. Go through Settings β Connections once and remove anything you do not recognise or no longer use. BadgeBase shows up there too if you have logged in here, and you can revoke it at any time. Source: tos.gg.
π SUBtember runs its course
Twitch's yearly sub promotion runs until October 1: discounts on new subs, 10% bonus Bits on Custom Power-Ups from September 12 to 19, and the bonus gift sub finale from September 26, where every five community gift subs earn one extra. The matching SUBtember 2026 badge has around 8,000 holders by now. Everything about it is in the September badge overview.
π οΈ Small tools for creators
Early in the month a whole batch of smaller features landed, collected in tos.gg recap 220. In testing: a personal message of up to 150 characters that viewers see at checkout when they sub. Live for everyone: GIFs in chat for Tier 2 and Tier 3 subs, which is also why BadgeBase now has a Tier 3 Sub achievement. Creators can edit the captions of their clips, and "hold links for review", which I mentioned as coming in August, is now available to all moderators.
DJs can finally create clips. The DJ Program had been clip-free so far; now streamers and mods can clip, with the condition that no copyrighted music ends up in the clip. Twitch celebrated it with a badge of its own: Clipped That went to DJs who clipped and shared a moment from their set, only 167 people have it. Also new: besides the Affiliate or Partner anniversary, channels can now celebrate the anniversary of their first stream.
ποΈ Categories: goodbye Just Catting
"Just Catting", the April Fools' category from 2024, has been removed. And "Get Ready With Me" replaces "Beauty & Body Art". Both changes were posted by Zach Bussey on X and are in recap 221.
π GTA RP week with nopixel
For the relaunch of the GTA roleplay server nopixel V, Twitch ran a GTA RP week with a paid chat badge, themed emotes and extra perks. It is the first time Twitch has partnered this closely with an RP server. The badge part, including why watching did not earn it, is in the badge overview under nopixel V Launch.
π Outages and numbers
The first week of September brought several outages. Zach Bussey also shared the August figures compared to last year, with a question mark over whether the trend holds. For advertisers, Twitch published a "State of Gaming" report for 2026 on its blog.
π People and events
Dan Clancy spoke at the Tokyo Game Show, and Twitch's new marketing chief talked about the platform's priorities on the Scalable podcast. At PAX Aus, Twitch supports a creator lounge. And a nice number from CommanderRoot about TwitchCon: only about 10% of visitors have attended more than two conventions, so most people there are new.
ποΈ The badges of the month
September was one of the busiest badge months of the year, from ELDEN RING and ZEVENT to the ATLUS set, the PAYDAY masks, CONTROL Resonant and Dungeons & Dragons. New badges were announced week after week by AlphaDuplo, whose posts tos.gg collects every Sunday. Every single badge with dates and collector counts is in the September overview.
ποΈ Update (Sep 28): browser streaming, combined views and an ad push
More news from the last days of the month, collected in tos.gg recap 223.
π Streaming straight from the browser. Twitch now lets you go live directly from the web browser, without OBS or any other streaming software. For someone who just wants to try streaming once, that removes the biggest hurdle. Source: Zach Bussey.
π₯ Combined views no longer boost the directory. When you sort a category by viewers, high to low, Twitch no longer uses the combined views of a shared stream. Several channels streaming together used to pool their numbers and jump to the top that way. Source: Zach Bussey.
πΊ "Peak ad season". Twitch emailed creators that October to December is peak season for advertising and that more ad time per hour can bring "up to 30% more potential ad revenue". Zach Bussey did the maths in his article: most channels run the 3 minutes per hour that switch off preroll ads, and going to 5 minutes is 66% more ads for at most 30% more money. In his view ads only really pay off from around 250 concurrent viewers, and for everyone else subs, Bits and tips matter far more.
π€ Cameo and a departure. Twitch is promoting a partnership with Cameo, and David Rosenberg, Twitch's Global Head of Music, has left the company.
ποΈ Five more badges. The end of the month brought two free ones for watch time, Rematch Blue Lock and the RuneFest badges around Yellow Party Hat, and three paid ones: ACE COMBAT 8 Nugget, Big Walk and the Wolf Medallion for The Witcher 3 Remastered. All of them were first posted by AlphaDuplo, and everything that runs into October is in the October overview.
What to remember
Check your clips now that all of them are public, and check your connected apps after the extension leak. Following Since is only visible to you as a streamer or mod. What changed on BadgeBase itself this month is in the September update, and every single change in the changelog.
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