As we look ahead to the new year, the streaming landscape is set for significant shifts. With the rapid pace of technology innovation, what was once a “game changer” can quickly become a blase distant memory. Working with customers around the world, here is what our global leaders think will make headlines in 2025 and beyond.
Paul Pastor, Chief Business Officer and co-founder, Quickplay
In 2025, short-form content will make its way from TikTok and YouTube onto media streaming platforms as companies follow the consumers’ lead and invest in short form content and product strategies. From a business POV, this is all common sense: short-form content offers the potential to reach new audiences, to promote higher value long-form content and subscriptions, to deliver more monetization opportunities with ad-inventory and Shopify-like experiences, and to give consumers a reason to create a daily habit within their streaming apps.
Additionally, 2025 will be a year where AI’s application moves from experimentation to adoption. Buyers will apply AI tools against short form clip creation and marketing assets to increase their publishing velocity. They will also utilize multi-modal analytical models against their content libraries to enhance metadata for discovery and unlock relational content maps to advance personalization and monetization strategies on their platforms. And importantly, product owners will advance their consumer discovery tools with the application of tools that leverage LLM models to surface content that is more relevant to a consumer search.
From a creator perspective, we’ll see AI continue to blur the line between “professional video” and influencer or creator content. Tools like OpenAI’s Sora will advance their storytelling capabilities and draw yet more eyeballs in their direction.
All of this is bound to have a profound impact on the creative industry. Not to be downer, but the application of these tools will drive productivity increases which will ultimately lead to substantial impacts on creative and operational employment opportunities. Don’t be surprised if we start to see the shine of AI tools take a hit in 2025.
Wim Ponnet, President, EMEA, Quickplay
Some of the once-hyped trends like Web3 and Metaverse are losing steam in EMEA due to both technological and political changes. What’s emerging now is a set of more pragmatic, tech-driven trends that will redefine how fans engage with content and how platforms monetize these relationships.
Hyper-segmented content will dominate. Platforms will focus on enabling tailored experiences for highly specific micro-communities with genre-specific content or creators catering to niche fanbases. This shift means platforms will focus heavily on curating content that resonates deeply with highly engaged, yet smaller, audiences. And, the days of passive viewing are fading. Now, audiences want to be part of the story—whether that means influencing live events, sports broadcasts, or their favorite shows in real-time.
We are also seeing an explosion of streaming ecosystems’ fragmentation. This will result in consumers juggling multiple subscriptions for niche content, which in turn creates demand for smarter content aggregators and more strategic bundling solutions. Advertising will also play a role with dynamic ad insertion and commerce integration further transforming monetization. Ads won’t just be static interruptions anymore, we will see a blend of entertainment and e-commerce that will redefine how brands and advertisers engage consumers.
These trends reflect a future where technology drives both the content we consume and how we interact with it. As platforms adapt, we’ll see even more creative ways to engage fans, build communities, and drive monetization.
Jim Vinh, Director of Sales, APAC, Quickplay
In 2025, legacy video platforms in the APAC region will finally reach a tipping point and migrate from on premise to cloud. While there are many instances of this happening throughout the world, in APAC the transition has been slower. And the irony is, this is the place where cloud-based infrastructure can truly deliver flourishing results.
The main driver of this transition will be the ease of integration to third party OTT platforms (super aggregation) and access to AI services from cloud providers. We’re already working with many tier 1 powerhouses across the region to help them realize the benefits of cloud and AI. In 2025, this work will expand even broader.
As we look beyond 2025, we will see the final death of the traditional set-top box. Once the cornerstone of Pay TV for cable, IPTV, and DTH, it will finally be phased out globally and replaced by consumer devices that are already OTT-enabled off the shelf. This will further enhance viewing experiences and empower programmers to deliver more applications and features more quickly to a broader audience than ever before.
Around the world, viewing experiences will become more personalized with the help of GenAI and the cloud. From quickly creating short-form content and curating hyper-relevant content recommendations, the future will hold more consumer choice. It’s up to broadcasters and streamers to move quickly enough to keep them engaged within your own ecosystem. Thankfully, we’ve got the tools to make that happen!
Hold onto your hats and your remotes – it should be another adventurous year for streaming in 2025!