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What we learned at the Media Supply Festival 2026

The Media Supply Festival brought together representatives from over 25 media companies and their key technology and service partners for two days in New York City, to understand the future of how we create, manage, and distribute content.

Attendees came not just from the New York area and the East Coast, but from LA and the West Coast, from Canada, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and more. And the messages they shared with their peers were significant. 

Now, you can watch the session videos on demand. Here’s what we learned:

1. The importance of audience proximity

The event highlighted how business models, workflows, and content strategies are being aligned more closely to understanding of audience behaviours, preferences, and needs.

2. Agentic engineering is revolutionising how supply chains get built

From the emergence of vibe coding to the complete reimagination of software engineering teams, it’s hard to overstate the importance of AI on how software gets designed, built, and integrated. The Media Supply Festival introduced the concept of Agentic Engineering, which ushers in dramatic change for our industry.

I wrote more about this theme on LinkedIn – read it here.

3. Agentic orchestration is the preferred integration pattern

Customers clearly told vendors: we don’t want AI integrated into every product – we want every product to integrate with our AI. The move towards agentic orchestration of specialist tools was expressed strongly, with media companies sharing their view on how vendor products and in-house AI can work together.

  • Paramount showed what “tech-first” means to them: moving from static, siloed tools towards intelligent workflows that connect teams, systems and decisions
    Watch: Making Paramount Tech-First
  • Versant shared how separation from NBCUniversal was a catalyst to simplify legacy systems, connect data, and build AI-first workflows from the ground up
    Watch: From Zero to AI Hero

4. The next generation supply chain is an intelligent blend of humans and AI

AI is now being applied to specific operational bottlenecks: content localisation, managing asset availability, reducing distribution complexity, and social publishing.

  • Cineverse used its supply chain automation tool Matchpoint and AI dubbing from Adapt to manage a breakout horror hit
    Watch: Terrifying Efficiency
  • NBCUniversal is integrating its commercial and operational processes more closely
    Watch: From Deal to Delivery
  • Reuters showed that intelligent workflows are also reshaping the commercial engine that helps media businesses understand, serve, and grow their customers
    Watch: Architecting Growth
  • Versant and Backlight explored where user interaction will give way to automated operations in the supply chain
    Watch: Integration, Automation, Autonomy

More to explore

While these key themes stood out, there’s even more to enjoy from the Media Supply Festival 2026.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery, ProdPro, and Sohonet shed light on trends in content production
    Watch: Fuelling the Supply Chain
  • BBC faced a huge challenge meeting new sovereignty regulations in India
    Watch: Sovereign News by Design
  • The DPP presented data from one of our flagship surveys, and reviewed the results with the CEO of Telestream
    Watch: The Media Tech CEO Survey
  • SDVI CEO Larry Kaplan reflected on the evolution of the supply chain
    Watch: Supply Chain Today

I hope you enjoy watching these sessions as much as we enjoyed putting them together. See you at another DPP event soon – you can register for our flagship Leaders’ Briefing now.