Streaming vendors see cost control and AI deployment as dual priorities for 2026

The streaming industry enters 2026 with vendors identifying cost management and the implementation of artificial intelligence as parallel concerns.

Several technology vendors shared their perspectives, noting that clients are focusing on spending on tools that reduce operational expenses while attempting to maintain service quality. The change reflects ongoing economic pressure that intensified during the pandemic.

The economic reset facing broadcast and media tech spending in 2026

Cost reduction drives infrastructure decisions

Reinhard Grandl, chief product officer at Bitmovin, said predicting and controlling costs has become a top priority for content providers. He pointed to Bitmovin’s video developer report as evidence that cost control represents the industry’s biggest challenge.

“Economic pressures are forcing providers to reduce operational overhead by optimizing infrastructure and streamlining delivery,” Grandl said.

Graham Sharp, vice president of sales and marketing at BCNEXXT, said streaming economics continue to strain industry finances. He said the required cost savings cannot come from headcount reductions alone and noted that workflows must be re-engineered.

Grandl said many companies are shifting toward cloud-based solutions and using third-party commercial tools for encoding, content delivery networks, digital rights management and video players instead of building custom systems internally. This approach reduces overhead and improves time-to-market, he said.

AI moves from testing to production use

Multiple vendors said artificial intelligence has transitioned from experimental deployments to production systems that are already generating measurable returns.

Grandl said AI is already being used for transcription, tagging, personalization, recommendations and quality optimization. He said the technology can help reduce labor and infrastructure costs while improving content discoverability and accessibility.

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“After a wide range of impressive AI demos throughout the year, there’s a notable focus now on practical deployment and delivering a meaningful ROI,” Grandl said.

He identified two specific applications: democratizing access to video data and extracting value from existing content libraries. AI enables non-technical staff to query complex metrics, while scene-level video analysis converts archives into searchable assets, he said.

However, Mārtiņš Magone, chief technology officer at Veset, said 2026 will be the year when businesses realize AI reality does not necessarily match expectations. He said many companies have assumed AI will quickly replace human roles, leading to heavy investment in AI capability.

“While AI excels in certain use cases, in a lot of others, companies are finding that it actually underperforms,” Magone said. “In reality, the models are nowhere near good enough to replace humans in a lot of real-world scenarios.”

Grandl said the industry still needs better interoperability, with standardized data structures. He cited the introduction of Model Context Protocol and open taxonomies from the Interactive Advertising Bureau as steps toward creating a cohesive ecosystem.

Ad-supported models and FAST channels draw investment

Grandl said investment in 2026 is indicated for advertisement and AI, particularly where they intersect. He noted that although most industry players now offer ad-supported services, advertising remains a major focus for innovation.

The analyst piece examining broader industry trends for 2026 provides additional context on advertising developments.

Industry analysts issue mixed outlook for streaming in 2026

Einat Khana, vice president of product solutions at Viaccess-Orca, said the line between premium subscription video on demand and free ad-supported streaming television is blurred. She said consolidation is expected for generic channels but noted a countertrend of hyper-segmentation through customized bundles.

“Consumers will increasingly reject ‘all-or-nothing’ packages in favor of micro-bundles that combine specific sports leagues, creator-led linear channels and niche FAST content into a personalized, lower-cost offering,” Khana said.

FAST faces real challenges despite its growth, according to Andrew Ward, business development manager for Cinegy.

“Most current offerings feature aging content with empty ad breaks,” Ward said. “Narrowcasting means small audiences, and advertisers remain unconvinced.”

Roberto Musso, technical director of NDI, said consolidation is inevitable on the distribution side but experimentation will continue.

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“Metadata-driven workflows for dynamic ad insertion, localized captioning and automated playout will open the door to highly targeted, niche FAST experiences that are still operationally efficient,” Musso said. The bigger streamers will compete on metadata sophistication and automation rather than volume of channels, he added.

Major streamers will deploy vertical scrolling discovery feeds within their apps in 2026, according to Paul Pastor, chief business officer of Quickplay.

“By bringing low-cost, high-engagement creator content into the main app experience, streamers will lower their average cost per hour of engagement and capture the Gen Z discovery loop that currently happens off-platform,” Pastor said. “Once they leave your platform to see what’s trending, you’ve lost them.”

Technical standards and workflow integration

Krzysztof Bartkowski, chief executive of streaming and cloud media at Big Blue Marble, said the central challenge is delivering streaming that matches the quality, reliability and security of broadcast. He said audiences no longer distinguish between broadcast and streaming but remember whether the experience was consistent and reliable.

“The future belongs to services capable of offering broadcast-grade resilience, scale and protection in a cloud-native environment,” Bartkowski said.

Musso said IP connectivity is no longer the hard part at scale but that control is. He said the real opportunity is making large, distributed workflows feel as intuitive as a small control room, with centralized discovery, synchronization and orchestration.

Mark Donnigan, head of strategic marketing at NETINT and industry advisor, said broadcasters and streamers will increasingly cross traditional competitive lines to share content and technology. He pointed to TV 3.0, called DTV+ in Brazil, as an example where standards used by traditional over-the-top streaming services are being adopted.

Grandl said the industry assumption that maintaining a single, established technology stack is the best approach will be disrupted by the end of 2026. He said viewer expectations, device fragmentation and monetization pressures are moving too fast for a single-track strategy.

“Companies that cling to an overly conservative, single-track approach risk falling behind not because they made the wrong choice, but because they stopped pushing ahead and making new ones,” Grandl said.

The trajectory these vendors describe suggests the streaming industry is entering a period where technical maturity matters more than market expansion. Companies that spent the past decade racing to launch services and acquire subscribers are now optimizing the infrastructure they built, and the tolerance for experimental or underperforming technology has diminished.

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The convergence of cost pressure and AI capability is not coincidental: it reflects an industry that can no longer subsidize inefficiency with growth projections. What remains uncertain is whether the focus on operational discipline will allow room for the kind of product experimentation that historically defined consumer technology markets, or whether streaming is settling into a more conservative operational model that prioritizes margin protection over audience innovation.