The first four stages of Bruce Tuckman’s stages of group development – Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing – describe how teams evolve from initial uncertainty to high performance. These stages also serve as a roadmap for how the Media & Entertainment industry is evolving amid ongoing shifts in consumer behavior, industry consolidation, and the adoption of AI solutions to adapt and thrive.
Every year, the NAB Show reflects the technologies reshaping media, entertainment, and broadcasting. 2023 sounded the alarm bell that AI could change the game. 2024 was the year of Storming, assessing risks and opportunities with thousands of POCs yielding few results. In 2025, some beams of light began to shine through the clouds, with some use cases delivering productivity gains as more effective AI tools and governance were introduced. In 2026, the industry is poised to firmly enter the Forming stage of development. The conversation is shifting from isolated innovation to full-scale structural transformation. Across the industry, leaders are now questioning how to redesign operations, distribution, and monetization models to compete in an ecosystem defined by automation, greater personalization, and intelligent platforms.
At Globant, we have identified five trends that will dominate the discussion. Together, they signal a clear direction: to better serve audiences, the future of media will be AI-powered, platform-driven, and built around direct, data-rich relationships.
- AI Automation across the Content Supply Chain
Media companies are moving beyond fragmented AI experiments and into the industrialization of AI-native operations across the entire content lifecycle. From generative AI content creation, AI video production, automated editing, and AI content localization, to synthetic media and distribution optimization, and AI broadcast monitoring solutions, AI is becoming the foundational architecture of everyday production and a core driver of AI in media and entertainment production.
What used to be manual, fragmented, and time-consuming is now being redesigned as intelligent, automated pipelines. This year, the conversation at NAB may be headed from “What can AI do?” to “How do we operationalize AI at scale across the enterprise?” This shift requires sophisticated engineering, orchestration, and deep integration across content, data, and platforms. To win in this era, companies must move from “AI pilots” to enterprise-wide AI orchestration.
- Narrative Agility for the Next-Gen Digital Consumer
New formats are redefining storytelling; short-form scripted content, microdramas, interactive experiences, and AI-generated narratives are emerging as dominant formats for mobile and social consumption. Sessions like the Microdrama Boom highlight how quickly the industry is adapting to audiences who watch vertically, scroll constantly, and expect content to feel personal and immediate.
Content is being created as a flexible, adaptive, multi-format experience. This requires a radical shift in production models, necessitating new tools and workflows powered by automation and AI. The goal is “narrative agility”: the ability to create a core story that can adapt fluidly to any screen or format without manual re-editing.
- The Great Media Reset: Operational Deleveraging
After years of aggressive, loss-leading streaming expansion, the industry is well into the “Great Reset.” Profitability pressure, aggressive M&A, and rising production costs are forcing media and tech companies to rethink their operating models to adapt quickly.
Technology consolidation, AI-driven efficiency, and infrastructure modernization have become the top executive priorities. For companies to succeed, they must look toward operational deleveraging, cutting structural costs by redefining how content is produced, distributed, and monetized. The focus is shifting from “growth at any cost” to building sustainable, scalable, and intelligent business models.
The Bigger Picture: A Manifesto for 2026
The conversation at NAB Show 2026 this year may point to the same reality: The media industry is not going through a cycle of innovation; it is undergoing a structural reset. A new operating model is emerging where:
- AI-Native Workflows power content creation and operations.
- Platform Engineering defines how audiences are reached.
- Data Sovereignty determines how value is captured.
- Direct Relationships drive long-term growth.
Success depends not on adopting separate technologies, but on integrating them into a coherent, scalable ecosystem.
At Globant, we support media and entertainment organizations as they transition to the Forming and Norming stages of building and operating AI-enabled, platform-driven operating models, which are already leading to exponential productivity gains.
Combined with our decades of experience across the Media & Entertainment ecosystem with the world’s most impactful companies, we build AI-powered production pipelines, modern platform architectures, and data-centric ecosystems that enable direct audience relationships and scalable monetization. By integrating generative technologies, intelligent workflows, and advanced personalization capabilities, we help companies simplify operations, adapt to new formats, and regain control over distribution and customer engagement.
The result is a more efficient, flexible, and data-driven media organization, ready to compete in an industry where technology is no longer a support function, but the foundation of the business itself.
Learn more by visiting Globant’s Media & Entertainment AI Studio
