By Matthew Corrigan (TVB Europe). Published: January 5, 2026
In the second of our series of articles, leading figures from across the media and entertainment world give TVBEurope their opinions on IP adoption throughout the next 12 months
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Sam Peterson, COO, Bitcentral
The defining shift in 2025 was the move from debating cloud to operationalizing hybrid cloud-native workflows at scale. Broadcasters are now designing around a mixed environment where cloud elasticity supports peak demand, while on-prem remains the anchor for predictable performance. That balance is giving teams control without sacrificing speed. 
The second major trend was the maturation of AI-driven media-asset intelligence. Automation around metadata, content discovery, and clip retrieval is transforming how fast teams can repurpose and monetise their libraries. AI isn’t replacing editorial judgment, but it is removing the friction that has slowed newsrooms and production teams for years.
Finally, workflow simplification has become a strategic priority. Media companies are consolidating tools, eliminating redundant processes, and prioritising systems that reduce operational burden. Efficiency is becoming just as critical as innovation. This shift isn’t just operational housekeeping. It’s freeing teams to focus on storytelling, speed to air, and monetisation, which is a key competitive advantage.
The impact has been both immediate and foundational. Hybrid cloud workflows provide media and entertainment companies with real flexibility, enabling remote collaboration, rapid scaling, and global distribution without the heavy CapEx burden of a traditional broadcast infrastructure. This unlocks agility for launching pop-up channels, international feeds, or OTT and FAST services without overhauling legacy systems.
AI-powered asset management and automated metadata generation are reshaping the economics of content operations. When AI handles tagging, indexing, search, and even initial quality control, teams reclaim hours previously lost to manual labour, meaning faster time-to-air, more efficient reuse of archival content, and better monetisation of existing libraries.
The drive toward workflow simplification is impacting culture as much as technology. By reducing friction from ingest, edit, to distribution, teams are spending less time chasing assets and more time shaping content strategy and audience engagement. The result is a more responsive, data-aware production environment that supports faster decisions, better monetisation, and critically – more space for genuine creative work.
We can expect the shift to hybrid cloud-native workflows to deepen with more broadcasters combining cloud and on-prem systems not just for storage and playout, but for full production and post-production pipelines. The industry is steadily embracing cloud-based media orchestration services, and the next 12 months should see a growing share of media companies operating hybrid clouds for editing, collaboration, and distribution.
At the same time, AI-driven asset management and ‘agentic AI’ will transition from nice-to-have to foundational. We are already seeing this take shape, but it will evolve in 2026. AI will increasingly power everyday workflows, automatically tagging metadata, indexing footage, assisting in search, and even pre-assembling clips for review. For media organisations, that means dramatically faster turnaround, smarter reuse of archives, and more consistent quality across large content libraries.
A notable trend emerging for 2026 is practical ‘coopetition’. Broadcasters, vendors, and platforms are recognising that shared standards, shared tooling, and selective collaboration reduce operational burden and allow resources to be deployed more strategically. As content moves across more platforms and partners, cooperation is becoming an operational necessity.
We also expect AI-enabled interoperability to grow quickly. AI will make it easier to connect disparate systems, automate handoffs between organisations, streamline compliance, and unlock new ways to manage complex distribution chains. This is particularly important as media companies expand across multiple digital environments with different technical requirements.
Together, these shifts point to a more connected and efficient global media ecosystem, where intelligent automation and strategic partnerships play a central role in how organizations scale and compete.
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Click here to read the full article on TVBEurope.com: TVB-Europe.com/The-Year-Ahead: Leading-Industry-Figures-on-the-Continuing-Story-of-IP-Migration