In a recent study analyzing the potential impact of AI on the global economy, industry analyst IDC projected that by 2030, AI spending will reach $417 billion and AI products and services will account for $22.3 trillion of the global economy.
Most industries and companies have already felt the impact of AI and are considering how best to leverage the technology. However, the IDC report indicates that some industries have adopted AI more quickly than others. Media and Publishing is one such sector, eclipsing some of the more usual suspects like telecommunications and even general technology.
The rationale for this can likely be found by understanding the unique and complex nature of the media and publishing environment today.
A litany of challenges
Media and publishing companies continue to face a multitude of challenges. New competitors, including digital platforms, streaming services, and social media networks owned by deep-pocketed technology giants, have intensified the battle for viewers and advertising revenues. Escalating technical debt, accumulated over years of acquisitions, mergers, and consolidations, is hampering investment in new technologies. And despite consistent downward pressures on print businesses, publishing companies are forced to maintain these legacy systems while continuing to scale digital offerings.
In addition to all of these obstacles, media and publishing companies also have to keep up with changing audience behaviors while maintaining trust and credibility in an era where deepfakes and misinformation run rampant.
Tackling these hurdles with AI
AI is already starting to solve these challenges. At a more basic level, some media and publishing businesses have deployed AI internally to improve productivity through automation. By using AI agents to execute repetitive tasks that can take a lot of time, these companies can accelerate workflows and deliver news and content to subscribers more quickly, freeing teams to focus on more substantive initiatives.
Other companies have begun to explore how AI can be used to manage the trust crisis in media and protect content creation rights. In an era where opinion and fact are blurred, where unreliable sources are plentiful, and protected content can be easily manipulated for nefarious purposes, media companies are turning to AI to defend content integrity, root out misinformation, and restore trust.
Perhaps most significantly, progressive media companies are harnessing the power of AI to optimize personalization strategies. Today, Netflix attributes 80% of its view time to its recommendation engine, amounting to around a billion dollars a year in revenue. YouTube attributes 70% of its views to its recommendation engine. By using AI to capture customer content choices and track preferences as they evolve, these companies can offer more compelling and relevant content recommendations – keys to retaining and attracting subscribers. Armed with a deeper understanding of the customer, enabled by AI, media companies can serve more appropriate ads and make more informed decisions related to content production and acquisition, ultimately increasing engagement and reducing churn.
It’s evident that AI has become imperative for media and publishing companies attempting to navigate a competitive industry sector. From combating misinformation to optimizing advertising strategies to driving deeper personalization, or simply for streamlining operations, AI delivers the capabilities that will allow companies to overcome industry pain points and thrive in the continuously evolving and complex media and publishing landscape.
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