IBC always highlights the opportunities and challenges within the industry; this year was no different. Here’s our take on what themes stood out for us during the four days in Amsterdam.
Discovery is Clear
From production to workflows to user-facing experiences, content discovery was dominating the halls at the RAI. Regardless of your position in the value chain, discovery has become a necessity. Given the current market landscape, service providers are prioritizing user experiences. Audiences expect content to be immersive, dynamic and highly personalized. This is driven by data and a desire for seamless integration across platforms. In comparison to previous years, there was a shift from why there is a need for personalization and content discovery to what specific KPIs accurate personalization can deliver on.
Data is the cornerstone of effective content discovery and personalization and its importance is only growing. This was definitely a key theme throughout the whole of IBC. In today’s crowded media landscape, a generic, one-size-fits-all approach is no longer enough to capture and retain an audience. We all know about the individual needs of consumers, but sometimes we forget that service providers also have different requirements, specific to their ecosystem, environment and business needs. This also requires personalization solutions to address those customer-specific needs, helping them boost relevance and monetization.
AI is Here to Stay
Obviously, we can’t not mention AI. Again, it was everywhere, Agentic AI, Generative-AI, all of it. While generative AI remains a topic of conversation, the industry’s focus at IBC 2025 was that priority has moved towards its practical application for workflow efficiency and cost reduction. AI is no longer just a buzzword; it’s being implemented to automate tasks, improve data analysis and streamline production processes. However, in some parts, it felt like many vendors just wanted to hit the mark of AI, sometimes without the practical examples of how they are using it.
At IBC, there’s a strong consensus that AI is a tool to support and enhance human creativity, not replace it. This is one area we strongly believe in at XroadMedia, AI should work with your teams, not against them. Our Personal Editorial AI Assistant powers editorial, marketing and product teams to flexibly enhance the whole user experience from UI to notifications and more.
The Need to Do More with Less
Based on the conversations, showcases and keynotes at IBC 2025, efficiency was not just a concept, it was the central driving force behind nearly every new development and discussion. With ongoing challenges, the question on everyone’s mind was how they could have their operations go further, drive maximum ROI. As AI is becoming more readily available, this is helping teams through automating workflows, reducing costs and time resources, however, it’s not always as effective as people think, as some unsuitable applications of AI can be costly. Efficiency is arguably the most significant operational benefit of using AI in content discovery and personalization workflows. It transforms what were once time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks into automated, scalable and highly accurate processes.
Strong Partnerships
Now more than ever, partnerships are proving their worth. As businesses cut back on budgets, when they do want to invest, they want it to be as seamless and effortless as possible. Instead of competing in isolation, companies are increasingly recognizing that the fastest and most efficient way to innovate and address shared challenges is through strategic collaboration. We were proud to share highlights during IBC from our partnerships with NAGRAVISION for OpenTV ENTera, demoed how we personalize email campaigns with MoEngage, how we deliver real-time sports experiences with EaseLive, how we’ve teamed up with Looper Insights to deliver an additional level of content personalization and visibility and many more.
What stood out to you at IBC? We’d love to hear from you. If you missed us, make sure you chat with us about our new developments that provide real-time, flexible, scalable and AI-based personalization to enhance user experiences throughout all of your users’ lifecycle.
