An entertainment revolution, powered by AI and other emerging technologies, is fundamentally changing how content is created and consumed today. Media and entertainment (M&E) brands are faced with unprecedented opportunities—to reimagine costly and complex production workloads, to predict the success of new scripts or outlines, and to deliver immersive entertainment in novel formats like virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse. Meanwhile, the boundaries between entertainment formats—from gaming to movies and back—are blurring, as new alliances form across industries, and hardware innovations like smart glasses and autonomous vehicles make media as ubiquitous as air.
At the same time, media and entertainment brands are facing competitive threats. They must reinvent their business models and identify new revenue streams in a more fragmented and complex consumer landscape. They must keep up with advances in hardware and networking, while building an IT infrastructure to support AI and related technologies. Digital media standards will need to evolve to ensure interoperability and seamless experiences, while companies search for the right balance between human and machine, and protect their intellectual property and data.
This report examines the key technology shifts transforming today’s media and entertainment industry and explores their business implications. Based on in-depth interviews with media and entertainment executives, startup founders, industry analysts, and experts, the report outlines the challenges and opportunities that tech-savvy business leaders will find ahead.
This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.
