How to Go Live on YouTube With an AI Character, Step by Step (No Stream Key Needed)

To go live on YouTube with an AI character, connect your YouTube channel to ReelMint, prepare the character once, write a short brief and press Go live: Mint Live creates the broadcast on your channel and the character hosts it in its own voice. You do not paste a stream key for YouTube, and a talk show costs 3 credits a minute, held up front and settled on the minutes actually streamed.

We build ReelMint, and this is the YouTube-specific walkthrough: what to switch on in YouTube Studio first, every screen in order, the exact prices in the code today, and the limits we would rather you hear from us than discover on air.

Before you start: two things on the YouTube side

1. Connect the channel. Go to Connections and press Connect next to YouTube. It opens Google's own sign-in page; the permission you approve there for publishing also covers YouTube's Live API, so there is nothing extra to grant. Connecting needs no plan. The connect-your-channels guide shows each screen.
2. Enable live streaming in YouTube Studio. YouTube has to switch live streaming on for the channel. The first time, YouTube takes 24 hours to do it, so do this a day before you plan to stream. If it is not enabled, the broadcast cannot be created and the session fails before anything is charged for minutes.

Why there is no stream key for YouTube

Most streaming tools ask you to copy a server address and a stream key out of YouTube Studio. For YouTube we skip that. Mint Live uses the channel you connected to create the live stream and the broadcast through YouTube's Live API, binds them, and starts the broadcast when YouTube sees the feed. The watch link appears on the session page once YouTube reports the stream as live.

The server-address-and-key fields you may see on the page are for TikTok LIVE Studio, and TikTok streaming is not open to every account yet: Mint Live streams to YouTube Live only for now, and TikTok LIVE is coming soon.

Step 1: pick the host and prepare it (196 credits, once)

Open Mint Live and choose one of your characters as the host. If you have none, make one in the Character Studio first (how to create reusable characters).

Preparing films the character once and keeps the footage for every future stream:

• a 12-second loop of the character speaking in its own voice, played whenever a line is spoken;
• a 5-second idle loop of it breathing and blinking, played between lines.

It costs 196 credits and takes a few minutes (usually 3 to 8). It is never bought again at go-live. A character you do not prepare can still stream, as a still portrait. If the talking loop cannot be filmed, the mouth follows the voice from still pictures instead.

Step 2: say what the show is

Choose the kind of show:

• Talk show: the host greets viewers and keeps talking about your brief. The brief is the topics to cover, the tone to keep and the things to never say, up to 2,000 characters, and the host reads it before every line.
• Music show: a song from your library plays on a loop while the character dances. Songs made in the studio or uploaded as audio both work. The dance clip is filmed once per character and frame shape for 80 credits.

Add a title (up to 100 characters) and, if you like, a backdrop picture from your library.

Step 3: choose where it goes and who can watch

Pick the connected YouTube channel and the privacy: Everyone (public), Anyone with the link or Only me. Only me is a good way to run your first test without an audience.

Step 4: set the length and read the price

A session runs from 15 to 240 minutes; the default is 60. The price is shown before you start:

• Talk show: 3 credits a minute. An hour is 180 credits; the full four hours is 720.
• Music show: 1 credit a minute. An hour is 60 credits.

When you press Go live, credits for the whole length are held, not spent. The stream draws on that hold as it runs, and when it ends the minutes actually streamed are charged and the rest of the hold comes back to your balance. If the stream fails to start, the hold is released. For scale, Lite is $9.99 a month for 800 credits and Starter is $29 for 2,600, and every plan runs every feature.

Step 5: steer it from the control room

Once YouTube sees the feed, the session page becomes a control room. It refreshes every few seconds with a preview frame and a transcript of what the host has said. Type a line into "Make the host say something" and the host says it in its voice. A line written in another script, Japanese or Arabic for example, is read in that language rather than spelled out.

When nobody gives it a line, a talk-show host keeps going on its own: after a quiet spell it says something new from the brief, never repeating what it already said.

Step 6: end it

Press End (twice, to confirm). The host says goodbye, the broadcast is completed on YouTube, and the minutes already streamed are charged. The stream also ends by itself when the length you chose runs out or the balance can no longer cover it.

Honest limits

• The host does not read the YouTube chat. It speaks its greeting, your lines, its own lines from the brief and the sign-off. If you want it to respond to a viewer, read the chat yourself and type the answer into the control room.
• It is not instant. The stream is composed a few seconds ahead of real time so a slow frame never freezes the picture, so a typed line reaches viewers after a short delay.
• The mouth is a loop, not per-line lip sync. The talking footage is the character really speaking, but it is not synced to each new line.
• Every stream carries the ReelMint badge, whatever the plan.
• Standard quality is 720p at 30 fps. One broadcast can run for hours; YouTube keeps an archive of up to 12 hours.

Want the show to run every day without you? That is Mint Stage, covered in the Mint Stage tutorial. The one-minute video version of this page is How to go live with an AI character.

Do I need a stream key to go live on YouTube with ReelMint?

No. ReelMint creates the broadcast on the YouTube channel you connected, through YouTube's Live API. You only need live streaming enabled on the channel in YouTube Studio.

How much does a one-hour AI live stream on YouTube cost?

A one-hour talk show is 180 credits (3 a minute); a one-hour music show is 60 (1 a minute). Preparing the character is 196 credits once, reused by every stream after.

What happens to the credits if I end the stream early?

Only the minutes streamed are charged. The rest of the hold made at the start goes back to your balance when the stream ends.

Does the AI character answer the YouTube chat?

No. The host does not read the chat. You steer it by typing lines in the control room, and it talks from your brief in between.

Why does my channel say live streaming is not available?

YouTube has to enable live streaming on the channel first, and the first time takes 24 hours. Turn it on in YouTube Studio and try again the next day.