Every September, the media technology world comes together at RAI Amsterdam. And every year, IBC offers a glimpse of where the industry actually stands, beyond the headlines and press releases. This year, that signal was clear even before the first session began.
IBC 2026 was a smaller show on paper, with roughly 30% fewer exhibitors and around 6% fewer attendees. In previous years, numbers like these might have raised questions about the industry’s health. This year, the feeling was different. The show did not feel smaller. It felt sharper.
The industry got more pragmatic, not more cautious
The people who came to Amsterdam this year knew what they wanted to accomplish. Buyers and technology leaders arrived with specific problems, clear priorities, and a strong focus on what needed to be solved before the next fiscal year.
The conversations were direct and focused on execution. Less “here is our vision” and more “here is what is breaking, and here is what it is costing us.”
That shift matters. A smaller show filled with decision-makers actively building the next generation of digital media businesses can be more valuable than crowded halls full of casual conversations. At IBC 2026, high intent mattered more than high volume.
Agentic AI moved from the keynote to the roadmap
For the past few years, agentic AI has been a headline topic at industry events. At IBC 2026, the conversation moved beyond the headlines and experimental pilots to practical questions about production: Where does it run? What does it cost? And what returns can it deliver?
This is the stage of the AI journey we have been waiting for.
On the CE Stage, Ria Kapila demonstrated the Evergent Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform in a 15-minute session. The questions that followed were telling. Nobody asked whether agentic AI was real. They wanted to know how to bring it into production without disrupting the systems they already rely on.
Our approach is simple. We work with customers as active design partners, not as a vendor delivering a black box. The goal is to deliver real ROI across retention, support, and analytics, measured through outcomes rather than announcements.
Hybrid monetization is now the default, and the complexity that comes with it
If one theme ran through almost every serious conversation, it was that one size no longer fits all.
Global platforms are managing AVOD, FAST, SVOD, transactional models, and dynamic bundling, often across multiple regions and currencies. This flexibility creates a competitive advantage, but it also adds operational complexity with every new model, market, and partner.
This is where our focus lies. Behind every stream is a business that needs to price, bill, and bundle its services while keeping subscribers engaged. This is where complexity builds up fastest, and where media companies increasingly need partners who can simplify operations rather than add another layer of complexity.
The message from our conversations was consistent: monetize any model, anywhere, without letting operational complexity slow the business down.
The Panel: Re-Engineering The Fan Experience
One of the week’s highlights was the showcase session on live sports and the fan experience, featuring Gorka Llort of MotoGP in a conversation moderated by our own Craig Ferguson.
Live sports brings together some of the industry’s biggest challenges: massive concurrent viewership, strict latency expectations, complex rights and bundling, and fans who have little patience for a broken experience.
The discussion was refreshingly honest about how much of the fan experience depends on the parts of the technology stack that fans never see. Getting those parts right is essential to delivering the experience fans expect.
The part that does not show up in a session catalog
For all the sessions and demos, some of the most valuable hours at IBC happen away from the show floor. They happen over dinner, at happy hours, and in the corner of a bar after a long day.
We were glad to co-host a show-floor happy hour with MediaKind and Accedo and spend meaningful time with partners and customers throughout the week.
For me, one highlight was continuing a tradition now more than 13 years old: sitting down with the partners and customers who make this business what it is. Two evenings, two wonderful groups of people, and one shared feeling in both rooms: gratitude.
In a fast-moving business, it is easy to get caught up in the calendar. Back-to-back meetings, roadmaps, quarterly targets, and the next big thing can leave little room to pause and connect.
Those dinners are a reminder of what matters most: spending time with the people we are building alongside. Behind every partnership and deployment are real people who have chosen to build something with us.
What we took away from Amsterdam
By our measure, IBC 2026 was one of our best shows yet. Not because it was bigger, but because it was more purposeful.
The industry came ready to build. Agentic AI moved closer to practical adoption. Hybrid monetization reinforced its place as the new normal. And the relationships that hold it all together grew stronger over dinner.
A smaller show turned out to be a stronger one.
Onward to 2027.
