A Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Study, October 2024
Media and entertainment (M&E) organizations are increasingly tasked with creating rich content to entertain consumers in a largely direct-to-consumer-focused industry.1 As in other industries, M&E leaders are experimenting with generative AI (genAI) adoption and grappling with how early use cases can transform existing workflows, core functions, and customer engagement.
Navigating this course comes with considerable uncertainty and risk. To succeed, M&E leaders must refine genAI’s role in their organization, focusing on immediate value and industry applicability. This path to success also requires leveraging trusted third-party ecosystems to guide genAI implementation, which in turn enhances business performance and mitigates enterprise risk.
In 2024, AWS Marketplace commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the state of media and entertainment organizations, their technology infrastructure, and their use of genAI. Forrester conducted an online survey with 515 respondents and four interviews with decision-makers at the manager level and above to explore this topic.
Consulting Team:
Jason Daniels, Market Impact Consultant
Lillie Sinprasong, Associate Market Impact Consultant
Contributing Research:
Forrester’s Technology Architecture & Delivery
Forrester research in 2024 reveals that M&E IT teams are balancing a number of competing priorities: aligning technology to business outcomes, enhancing customer experience, and improving security/privacy and resilience.2 Realizing these objectives is difficult to achieve all at once — even more so as firms weigh genAI transformation, which can serve as both a complicating factor and focusing lens. Firms will need to adapt in the face of infrastructure migration and ongoing internal initiatives in addition to fluctuating customer demand and the need for greater operational control.
Our survey of 515 M&E decision-makers confirmed that firms are adapting to shifting markets and putting their energies behind genAI. Three in four decision-makers said it is critical to integrate genAI within their organization’s products and services to compete. In support of their genAI objectives, respondents said that they’re prioritizing external partnerships, content production, customer personalization, and employee augmentation (see Figure 1). M&E firms signal a conservative approach: They want to work with known entities, building on existing systems and investments, rather than improvising new systems or migrating data (see Figure 2). A central theme in their genAI efforts over the next year will be doing more with less, including:
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: The top four responses are shown
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Nearly 80% of respondents said that their organizations are in the scaling or piloting stage of their genAI implementation (see Figure 3). While text output is a genAI entry point for roughly three-quarters of M&E organizations, far fewer are leveraging genAI to generate image outputs or video, audio, and digital assets due to IP and creative ownership concerns. But few are venturing on this genAI journey alone: Less than 20% of respondents told us that they are building or adopting genAI themselves. As firms explore use cases, they are trialing a mix of partners (e.g., genAI model vendors, MSP/services providers, marketplace vendors) and sourcing approaches (e.g., prioritizing prebuilt and partner solutions to integrate models and embedded genAI) (see Figure 4). As a VP of IT at a streaming firm in the UK shared: “We don’t have a firm strategy for [our genAI technology and model approach] yet. The market’s moving so quickly that to put your eggs in one basket feels wrong.”
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Most M&E decision-makers (58%) have a centralized genAI development team that serves the entire organization — regardless of individualized business needs or use cases. Just 27% use a federated model, where a centralized team sets standards and guidelines that are applied across autonomous, distributed teams. This gap reflects the immaturity of the market and implementation risks, and it could be a factor in why adoption and production thus far have been slow.
M&E leaders know that it’s vital to have genAI capabilities; however, respondents told us that they aren’t confident in their ability to utilize them. Roughly a third reported their organization falls short around data governance and ethically applying genAI, while nearly half said they don’t have up-to-date security and privacy practices or the people resources necessary to capitalize on the potential of genAI.
With the industry in flux and adoption limited, organizations are pragmatic with their plans, prioritizing business results over innovation and focusing first on straightforward genAI use cases. As they expand, they’ll need help beyond these initial implementations if they’re to take genAI enterprisewide and create greater value. This brings ambiguity, but for prudent decision-makers, it is an opportunity. Successful M&E leaders acknowledge that they require help and strategic partnerships to make genAI transformation a reality.
Just as leaders feel urgency to act, they are also cautious about getting genAI right — and for good reason. Many firms are not well equipped to implement genAI themselves, and not getting it right can have significant implications for their business and customers. Roughly half of M&E leaders (53%) cited concerns around inaccuracies (e.g., hallucinations) and bias in outputs (49%), while two-fifths struggle with finding quality training data for AI use cases (43%). Forrester research confirms that operational data quality is the main limiting factor for end-user adoption of genAI.3 Moreover, firms identified they lack the internal skill sets today to safely and effectively use genAI. As a result of these challenges, decision-makers struggle with genAI performance and output quality (65%), training data (60%), and lack of appropriate data to use (55%) (see Figure 5). Nearly half said they experience employee resistance to genAI implementation — given that genAI doesn’t always work and provide value, employees naturally push back. Surveyed respondents said their current genAI challenges go on to impede organizational objectives, owing to (see Figure 6):
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: The top four responses are shown
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: The top eight responses are shown
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Even for M&E firms that feel ahead of the curve and well positioned to capitalize on genAI’s momentum, there is much work to be done. For example, out of the respondents who said that they’re in the production stage in areas such as content moderation, natural language processing, transcription and translation, and dubbing, most said that their firms still struggle with genAI model quality. Nearly 70% across functions experience poor genAI performance and output quality, while more than half on average struggle to find appropriate data to use and train the data.
Firms are taking action by prioritizing better data inputs for genAI and more genAI use cases to improve business value and content outputs (see Figure 7). Firms don’t want generic capabilities — they need industry specificity while ensuring control over their content, a critical piece that equates to real power for firms in the age of genAI. To do this, M&E leaders signal that they need help with more advanced areas of the business. As they chart a path forward, prudent firms are turning to cloud providers and their extensive networks to both help with genAI implementation and satisfy industry-specific speed, scale, and content production and delivery needs.6 Decision-makers expect genAI capabilities over the next two to three years to result in more (see Figure 8):
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: The top four responses are shown
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: The top five responses are shown
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Over the next two to three years, 78% of respondents said that they anticipate genAI having an outsized impact on improving content supply chains. Meanwhile, 73% said the same for accelerating content production time, and 68% noted reduced content production costs (see Figure 9). These benefits align to organizational priorities while signaling that business specificity is top of mind: Firms are focused on deliberate initiatives with timelines they can accelerate, as opposed to broader, speculative aims that increase risk and uncertainty. These benefits also stand to improve organizational ability to (see Figure 10):
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
Base: 515 manager-plus technical and business decision-makers who influence long-term decisions about where the
industry is headed
Note: Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, September 2024
As M&E firms continue to experiment with internal and customer-facing genAI use cases, they must balance pragmatism against innovation on one hand and caution with the urgency to act on the other. An associate director of strategy at a streaming firm in India summed up this sentiment: “The way we see things, we are really optimistic about it. It’s more optimism but with a bit of caution into it.”
This is a journey where trusted, third-party providers can guide the way to identify use cases aligned to better customer engagement and business performance, leading firms through the subsequent waves of genAI innovation and transformation.
Forrester’s in-depth survey of media and entertainment decision-makers about genAI and technology strategy reveals several important recommendations:
In this study, Forrester conducted an online survey with 515 respondents and four interviews with media and entertainment decision-makers to evaluate the state of media and entertainment organizations, their technology infrastructure, and their use of genAI. Survey participants included technology and business decision-makers at the manager level and above. Questions provided to the participants asked about organizational priorities, challenges, and future plans around their technology infrastructure and genAI. Respondents were offered a small incentive as a thank-you for time spent on the survey. The study began in August 2024 and was completed in September 2024.
North America | 40% |
EMEA | 30% |
APAC | 30% |
>$5B | 22% |
$1B to $4,999B | 28% |
$500M to $999M | 30% |
$100M to $499M | 20% |
Streaming media | 37% |
Broadcast media | 36% |
Cable media | 27% |
Production technology | 23% |
Media production ops | 22% |
Marketing/advertising | 16% |
TV technology group | 15% |
Licensing/distribution tech | 15% |
C-level | 11% |
Vice president | 26% |
Director | 32% |
Manager | 31% |
Final decision-maker | 22% |
Part of a team | 36% |
Influence decisions | 43% |
Direct-to-consumer streaming | 16% |
Analytics | 14% |
Licensing distribution/rights | 14% |
Technology operations | 12% |
Business operations | 12% |
Enterprisewide | 22% |
Scaling | 39% |
Piloting | 39% |
Note: Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding
High-Performance IT: The Right Next Tech For You, Forrester Research, Inc., January 15, 2024
The Architect’s Guide To Generative AI, Forrester Research, Inc., January 11, 2024
GenAI For IT, Forrester Research, Inc., January 25, 2024
GenAI Productivity Gains For Employee- And Customer-Facing Teams, Forrester Research, Inc., June 13, 2024
1 Source: Best Practices For Gaming, Media, And Entertainment In The Cloud, 2024, Forrester Research, Inc., August 28, 2024.
2 Source: Best Practices For Gaming, Media, And Entertainment In The Cloud, 2024, Forrester Research, Inc., August 28, 2024.
3 Source: GenAI Is Changing The Way Operations Teams Should Think About Data Quality, Forrester Research, Inc., April 25, 2024.
4 Source: GenAI Is Changing The Way Operations Teams Should Think About Data Quality, Forrester Research, Inc., April 25, 2024.
5 Source: GenAI Is Changing The Way Operations Teams Should Think About Data Quality, Forrester Research, Inc., April 25, 2024.
6 Source: Best Practices For Gaming, Media, And Entertainment In The Cloud, 2024, Forrester Research, Inc., August 28, 2024.
7 Source: The Architect’s Guide To Conversational AI, Forrester Research, Inc., July 24, 2024.
This study was conducted by Forrester’s Custom Content Consulting Practice. Get in touch to discuss your custom content needs and goals. Learn more about all of Forrester's consulting capabilities.
Cookie Preferences
Accept Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions (data inputs, website navigation), so you don’t have to re-enter data when you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.
Behavioral information collected by our web analytics vendor is used to analyze data pertaining to visitor trends, plan website enhancements, and measure overall website effectiveness. We may also use cookies or web beacons to help us offer you products, programs, or services that may be of interest to you and to deliver relevant advertising. We may use third-party advertising companies to help tailor website content to users or to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may also employ cookies and web beacons to measure advertising effectiveness.
Please accept cookies and the collection of behavioral information to receive full functionality and enhance your experience. If you decline cookies, some features of the website may not function normally.
Please see our
Privacy Policy for more information.
https://mainstayadvisor.com/go/mainstay/gdpr/policy.html