Presenting the 2026 Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Awards

The Evolving Role of Streaming Engineers in the Age of AI and Automation

Streaming engineers' traditional functions are increasingly usurped or at least altered by the offloading of observability and monitoring and much decision-making to automated solutions. When it comes to streaming infrastructure management, how much have AI and automation driven humans from the loop? Where are human eyes on glass—however comparatively inefficient—still critical to sound streaming operations? Do automated solutions actually enable engineers to accomplish more than they could before? Servers.com's Lukas Navickas, SVTA's Bhavesh Upadhyaya, Qualabs' Juan Pablo Saibene, and LiveU's Ben Ratner discuss in this clip from their panel at Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Why Comms Culture Matters Even More Than Comms Tech in Live Streaming Ops

Few aspects of live streaming operations are more mission-critical than effective communications within the production team, and as LinkedIn's Chris Packard, LiveX's Corey Behnke, and the SVTA's Bhavesh Upadhyaya discuss in this clip from Streaming Media Connect, sound communications skills and culture go even further than state-of-the-art comms tech when it comes to delivering and scaling live productions, on-prem, hybrid, or REMI (remote integration).

How AI Is Transforming Streaming Adtech

AI's potential to transform CTV and OTT ad preparation, ad serving, ad placement, contextualization, video analysis, performance, and reporting is fairly well understood and rarely understated. But how are streaming platforms, content owners, and advertisers actually operationalizing AI today? Revry's Alia J. Daniels, Digital Culture Group's Crystal Foote, Dataxis' Ophelie Boucaud, and Sargeway's Sarge Sargent discuss how publishers are leveraging AI's advantages and also addressing some of its limitations in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

Metadata, Hyperpersonalization, and Leveraging Longtail CTV Content

As streaming content providers increasingly realize not only the value of their back catalogs, but also how to optimize them through improved discovery, metadata and metadata standardization have become critical, as Gracenote's Ashok Bania explains in conversation with Dataxis' Ophélie Boucaud. Hub Entertainment Research's Jon Giegengack chimes in on the role of scene-level analysis in maximizing the value of deep back catalogs and longtail legacy IP in this clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026.

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.

CTV Is Defining the Future of Streaming Ads

While advertising has long been a unidirectional experience, there have been forays into making it bidirectional for a long time. The value proposition is pretty clear. If people are watching a show and an advertisement comes on showcasing a product that interests them, wouldn't it be great if they could grab the remote, push a couple of buttons, and have it delivered to their doorstep?

Content Creation Consolidation: Bending Spoons Strikes Again

There are a few tools that many streaming pros have used through the years, from WeTransfer to Brightcove to Vimeo. Some are essential to content creation, OTT delivery, and live streaming. All of these tools have one important thing in common now: their recent acquisition by the Italian company Bending Spoons.

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