IBC2026: Broadcasters Warn of ‘Decisive Decade’ as AI and IP Upend the Media Value Chain

Adtech Standardization in the Age of Agentic AI and Contextual Ads

As agentic AI and contextual advertising move into the adtech mainstream, changing circumstances arguably call out for new standards to establish a working level of consistency and interoperability across the industry lest proprietary standards and incompatible secret sauces continue to drive players and packagers. Sargeway Owner Sarge Sargent, Dataxis Principal Analyst Ophélie Boucaud, and Servers.com Global Sales Executive Adtech Bradley Lewington discuss why standards and integrations are needed for widespread adoption and review the current and emerging state of specs and standardization across the CTV ecosystem in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Bias Toxicity, AI, and Contextual Advertising

Inviting AI to play a leading role in the match game of contextual advertising raises a number of red flags, and one of the most concerning is the built-in bias in the way that LLMs are trained. As Digital Culture Group's Crystal Foote points out, "A lot of adtech companies just aren't that diverse," and that can leave significant blind spots and "stereotypical insights" that find their way into AI models that manifest themselves in ad decisions. Foote, Sargeway's Sarge Sargent, and Dataxis' Ophelie Boucaud discuss what Sargent calls "bias toxicity" and its implications for AI-powered scene analysis, contextual advertising, and audience representation in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

AI and the Golden Rule of Content Discovery

What might be described as the "golden rule" or "Platonic ideal" of content discovery on CTV and OTT is "the right content, the right user, the right moment," as Dataxis Principal Analyst Ophélie Boucaud suggests in this clip from Streaming Media Connect, while Xperi VP & GM Content Discovery Chris Ambrozic offers AI-enhanced best practices for getting there and Hub Entertainment Research Principal Jon Giegengack discusses what gets platforms and services closest to achieving this goal.

Aggregation, Personalization, and Other Ways to ‘Own’ Your OTT Subscribers

Partnering with ISPs and telcos to bundle and aggregate content has emerged as an essential strategy for combatting churn and hanging onto customers in the subscription OTT space, but to really "own" the subscriber takes personalizing the experience and other strategies for enhancing subscription value, as Women in Streaming Media Head of Allyship Deepali Narsiker and Philo Head of Product Marketing Steven Chang discuss with Chris Pfaff Tech Media Founder Chris Pfaff in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Fair Trade

Even as technology trade shows like IBC, which opens at RAI Amsterdam just as this issue goes to press, atomize those experiences by industry rather than packaging them for popular consumption, they promise "see the world of tomorrow" excitement without the nationalistic and imperialistic baggage associated with it at many of the world's fairs of the 19th and 20th century.

Lessons in Live Verticalization and Dual-Aspect Streaming

So, how do you meet your audience "where they are" if you don't know where they'll be when they see your video? You stream it both vertically and horizontally at the same time, and you leverage technology to re-orient your content automatically. 

The Agent's Station

One way agentic AI is making inroads into streaming monetization, as I learned at Streaming Media Connect, offers the potential to complement and free up time for human creativity rather than replace it.

The Fine Print

Opening our blog to a never-ending stream of guest contributors yields some of the coolest stuff we publish, with topics that would never occur to me. Though I rarely know when these pieces will arrive or where they'll come from, it is often heady, provocative stuff that I'm proud to publish.

Bitmovin's Video Developer Report - 10th Edition

The Rise of Discovery Intelligence

Checklist Report: Ultimate Guide to Maximizing the Value of your Content Library

CacheFly

Media and Broadcast File-Transfer Workflow Challenges

Sponsored By: Signiant

Encoding & Transcoding Trends 2021

Sponsored By: Bitmovin

The State of Streaming Autumn 2020

Sponsored By: Zixi

The 2020 Streaming Monetization Report

Sponsored By: Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company