Content Everywhere: Disruptive forces in streaming, and not just AI

As succinctly put by Gatis Gailis, CEO and founder of Veset, “it’s got to be AI! It’s advancing at such an incredible rate and over the course of this year, a whole host of new and exciting tools have come to market that use AI technology to enhance efficiency, enable automation, improve service quality, analyse data, and deliver more personalised experiences”.

He adds: “But what’s really exciting is that we’re only just beginning to tap into AI’s capabilities. As AI technology improves and our understanding of how it can be applied deepens, we’ll see the industry transform over the next few years in ways we can barely imagine.”

Stefan Lederer, CEO and co-founder of Bitmovin, agrees that AI has been a major disruptive force over the past year, impacting pretty much every corner of the streaming industry.

“AI technology is driving advances in encoding optimisation, super-resolution upscaling, and analytics, all of which are enabling video providers to deliver quality improvements, for an enhanced user experience,” Lederer says.

He adds that AI is also proving to be instrumental in enabling video services to deliver more personalised experiences to viewers.

“Streaming services are leveraging AI technology to analyse vast amounts of user data in order to deliver content recommendations and viewing experiences more closely aligned with what users really want (rather than what video services may think they want!). Similarly, AI technology is also being used to deliver more personalised and relevant ad-content to viewers, which not only helps to create a more enjoyable user experience, but also serves to increase ad conversions and ad revenue,” Lederer says.

Lederer and Gailis are far from the only leaders in the Content Everywhere sector to highlight AI’s impact. Indeed, James Cranfield, global VP sales and partnerships at Cinedeck, says AI “has come such a long way in a short amount of time which is so exciting for the industry. It’s enabling a whole bunch of streamlining and cost and time savings across the entire media supply chain.”

Meanwhile, Nitesh Agrawal, SVP of product at Magnifi, points to the dual impact of AI-driven content creation and the rise of synthetic media.

“AI-powered tools have fundamentally reshaped content creation, streamlining everything from scriptwriting to editing and post-production. This revolution has driven cost-effective and efficient production processes while also enabling a new level of content personalisation for viewers. As AI tools become more sophisticated, streaming platforms can curate highly tailored content recommendations, creating an individualised viewing experience that meets the demands of increasingly diverse and niche audiences,” Agrawal says.

At the same time, Agrawal says the rise of synthetic media, including deepfakes, presents both opportunities and challenges.

He comments: “On one hand, this technology allows for unprecedented creative expression and immersive storytelling. On the other, it raises critical questions about the potential for misinformation and the erosion of trust in digital content. Balancing innovation with integrity has therefore become a key focus for industry players, as they navigate the ethical complexities and regulatory pressures that accompany these advancements.”

Bleuenn Le Goffic, VP business transformation at Accedo, says she believes that the massive disruption that happened this year is the “democratisation of AI, with an impact on the operational velocity but also on the streaming data analysis”.

“We know that executive, marketing, product, customer care teams are in need of different data crunching, analysis, prediction which only few media companies had managed to address with data specialist teams, with the assumption that each team would need to understand what they can ask for and then process the analytics given to actually perform an analysis, leading to a decision. With the roll out of generative AI in private cloud centres, the conversational aspect makes the analysis accessible, real time and tailored to any stakeholder, leading to faster and more customer centric product development,” she says.

Offering some caveats, Ajey Anand, CEO at Norigin Media, observes that while AI has developed some “great innovative product ideas”, he sees a lack of support from large organisations to push staff to use AI tools for products across marketing, technology and engineering.

“Companies are setting mandates to avoid or restrict using AI tools and being cautious for the right reasons, but spending way too less time and investments for training and encouraging staff for the wrong reasons. Across every event in 2024, I have only observed a handful of raised hands when I ask if professionals use AI for work product and outputs,” Anand says.

Cloud, monetisation and more

Of course, AI is not the only show in town. Lederer notes that there have been some significant advancements in live encoding this year, which he says are pushing the boundaries of what is achievable in terms of low-latency streaming.

“These developments are a game changer for a lot of verticals, particularly for sports where delivery of content in near real time is so critical. This cutting-edge encoding technology is helping to break down some of the last remaining barriers to streaming live content at scale which is a significant breakthrough for the industry,” he says.

Tom Dvorak, chief commercial officer at XroadMedia, says the 2024 landscape has been defined by rapid advances not only in AI, with an increased interest in generative AI, but also new monetisation strategies and intensified competition across streaming platforms.

“At the centre of this are companies prioritising user experiences to survive in a crowded market and fight churn. This year, the key shift has been from reactive churn management to proactive subscriber lifecycle optimisation. Several of our customers have been focusing on this, as our personalisation solution can help prevent churn by increasing subscriber loyalty by offering personalised upsells and retention incentives,” Dvorak says.

Cinedeck’s Cranfield adds that although AI has taken the spotlight this year, “cloud technology is also quietly evolving and advancing. There are significant efficiency gains to be made by leveraging cloud tools, and the ongoing need to produce content faster and more cost-effectively is driving more and more media providers to adopt cloud and hybrid cloud workflows”.

Rick Young, SVP, head of global products at LTN, highlights the migration toward IP-first workflows, which he says has been a big step in the right direction.

“IP distribution is shaping content in ways we never thought possible and is only going to grow from here. We are seeing the amazing impact it has had on live sports streams, where IP distribution offers hyper-regionalisation. Live sports reach diverse global markets, providing the ability to deliver region-specific elements like localised commentary, targeted ads, and custom graphics. Streaming platforms are reaching more audiences than ever before and driving stronger ROI from their sports coverage and it looks like the possibilities of IP distribution are endless,” Young says.

Sergio Ammirata, founder and chief scientist at SipRadius, points to the rapid growth in remote production, which in turn has “intensified the need for precise timing and secure, resilient connectivity across distributed teams, challenging traditional broadcast workflows. This shift has pushed the industry to rethink timing precision, connectivity standards, and security protocols to reliably support complex, decentralised productions.”

Monetisation is also highlighted by Paul Davies, head of marketing at Yospace, as it “continues to drive many decisions in our industry. Now, more than ever, media owners need to fulfil the revenue potential of their advertising inventory and do it at a whole new level of scale in order to succeed in an increasingly OTT world”.

On this topic, Yang Cai, CEO and president at VisualOn, adds that hybrid monetisation models marked a significant shift for streaming platforms, transforming how they engage and retain audiences.

“With ad-supported, freemium, and premium subscription tiers, platforms now provide options tailored to diverse budgets and preferences, broadening their user base. Effective ad management has become essential, with tools that support interactive formats, personalization, and seamless transitions ensuring that ads enhance rather than disrupt the viewing experience. In a landscape shaped by economic pressures and shifting viewer expectations, platforms that strike the right balance in ad management and hybrid monetization are best positioned to maximize both revenue and loyalty, setting a new industry standard for user-focused monetisation,” Cai says.

Paolo Cuttorelli, SVP global sales at Evergent, believes that the streaming industry has become more open about the challenges of achieving profitability that can be sustained over the long term.

“Media companies are asking tough – but important – questions about improving the bottom line or acquiring untapped customer segments — hard-to-reach audiences that demand strategic focus, targeted effort and the right tools. This has also led to a strategic shift toward more comprehensive service bundling options which enhance perceived value, foster subscriber loyalty, and deepen customer billing relationships,” Cuttorelli says.

Veset’s Gailis also observes that there has been a noticeable shift in sports broadcasting over the last twelve months with more sports events being distributed over OTT services than previously.

“This was unmistakable during the Olympics when the majority of content was distributed over OTT rather than via traditional methods. While this move has been underway for a while, it does seem to have accelerated in the last year, and it impacts how sports content is delivered and consumed in a big way. One significant difference is that distributing content over OTT services allows rights holders to deliver a much more personalised experience with a whole bunch of exciting features which just aren’t possible over traditional TV. This enhances the viewing experience, increases engagement, and ultimately helps to maximise ad revenue,” he says.

Tassilo Raesig, CEO of Mainstreaming, points to the adoption of hybrid network strategies, noting that combining private edge network deployments with public edge setups “provides unmatched flexibility, resilience, and quality control and optimises both delivery costs for streaming providers and quality of experience (QoE) for viewers.”

Last but not last, Dvorak says companies are becoming more aware of their impact on the environment, resulting in more providers setting sustainability targets. “This has led to an increase in demand for our cloud-agnostic solution as we are able to deploy in the same ecosystem as our customers – reducing costs, required resources and ultimately reducing our customer’s carbon footprint,” he says.