AI predictions for 2026 (Part 3)

Media & AI industry developments

My first two batches of AI predictions for 2026 focussed on AI assistants and media creation. My final batch is focussed on developments in the - now heavily overlapping - media and AI industries.

10.) A proliferation of AI-native production studios, often working in partnership with more established studios

Making effective use of AI tools in producing visual media requires two things: an understanding of how to tell stories in a specific medium (the grammar of the medium) and a willingness to keep experimenting with a rapidly evolving toolset. Right now, there are lots of people with one of these two, but few with both.

The majority of those experimenting with the tools (myself included), don’t have a deep understanding of visual storytelling and are learning by trial and error (in my case, mostly error).

For experienced visual storytellers, finding the time to experiment with an evolving (and potentially threatening) toolset can be challenging.

Alongside a growing cohort of solo content creators embracing AI tools (see prediction #9) is a new breed of AI-native production studios. The likes of Promise, Staircase, Wonder, Gennie and Asteria.

I expect more AI-native studios to emerge in 2026, typically providing more established studios with AI production as a service (as Promise is doing with The Generation Company) in parallel with developing their own IP.

We can also expect to see more super-indies follow Fremantle in establishing dedicated AI production labs.

11.) Sora’s sanctioned use of Disney IP will vex both creators and Disney

Disney’s desire for a greater degree of control over how its IP is used in AI-generated videos led it to agree a licensing deal with OpenAI and send a cease-and-desist letter to Google in December.

The terms of the OpenAI deal include “a shared commitment to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators”. I think that’s going to be hard to deliver on in practice and it’s likely Sora users will be frustrated by the safeguards put in place and Disney will be frustrated by the questionable generations that will inevitably slip through the net.

Meanwhile, fans aren’t waiting around for OpenAI to get Disney-approved guardrails in place (see Beggar’s Canyon, a 7-minute ‘Luke Skywalker fan film’, posted to YouTube just before Christmas).

12.) Focus will shift from trying to identify and flag AI-generated/assisted media to foregrounding human craft and connection

Whilst well intentioned, I believe trying to identity and label all AI-generated/assisted media is ultimately a fool’s errand. Detection tools will continue to be outflanked by tools designed to mask AI’s involvement (and bad actors will steer clear of tools with robust watermarking). Meanwhile, what degree of AI involvement in the creation of a piece of content merits labelling/censure will become increasingly moot.

I think we’re rapidly heading towards AI-generated being the default assumption for any new media you encounter and the onus will increasingly be on individuals and brands to earn trust through bringing something uniquely human to the party: personality, opinion, craft, connection.

I’m seeing more videos where the ‘making of’ feels almost as important as the final creative in signaling a brand’s commitment to human craft (e.g. Apple’s Christmas ad, the BBC’s Winter Olympics trail).

Making use of AI tools won’t disqualify creators from consideration (and there will be an active market for AI slop), but I believe the absence of a human spark in content will increasingly be noticed and penalised by consumers (and therefore engagement algorithms).

YouTube announced last week that it’s going to be enabling users to create Shorts using their own likeness. Whilst creators might be tempted to use this capability to scale their output, I anticipate those that do will get a rough ride from their fanbases.

13.) The music industry will act as a bellwether for a new mixed economy of predominantly AI-generated and predominantly human-generated media (with lots of shades of grey)

AI can already be used to generate music that we can’t reliably distinguish from human-generated music and, once the record labels are confident they’ll get their share of the spoils, I anticipate AI-generated music will become increasingly commonplace, especially where it’s background (e.g. elevators, dinner parties, the soundtrack to many TV shows).

This isn’t great news for musicians and companies whose output is tailored for those background scenarios.

However, I also believe our hard-wired desire for connection, narrative and meaning means we’ll continue to seek out music written and performed by humans.

As with most aspects of AI, this won’t be a binary equation. We’re also going to see increasing amounts of ‘co-created’ music, with humans casting AI as collaborator, with the percentage contributions of each impossible to determine.

14.) ‘AI-free’ will become a marketable product promise in a number of sectors

Because AI can and is used to do bad things (and makes it easier to do those bad things at greater scale, with greater impact) and because its current and anticipated capabilities play into some of our greatest fears, a (to my mind reductive) view that AI is inherently bad was inevitable and is only going to become more prevalent as AI’s capabilities and applications continue to multiply.

Whilst I would discourage reinforcing such a reductive view of AI, I anticipate ‘AI-free’ to become an increasingly marketable product promise in certain sectors.

As AI-enabled toys proliferate (with predictable negative consequences where insufficient safeguards have been applied), I predict an increase in toys being actively positioned/marketed as having fewer, rather than more, tech smarts.

We’ve already seen how the abuses of social media companies in pursuit of engagement have led to a wider movement against screen-based devices. Anti-AI sentiment is likely to create more fertile ground for companies developing intentionally ‘dumber’ devices, such as Tin Can, ‘the new school landline for friends’, and Yoto, ‘the screen-free audio platform for children’ (a brilliant UK success story and the subject of my first ever post on this blog).

Whilst ‘AI-free’ may appeal to some consumers, I’d advocate describing the positive benefits of your product/service (I’d point to Pinwheel as a kids product company doing a decent job of this) rather than trading on generalised anxieties around a very broad set of technologies.

15.) AI-generated casual games will proliferate rapidly whilst adoption in hardcore game production will continue to divide the industry

The use of generative AI in video game production is deeply controversial, with numerous developers/publishers getting burned last year for adoption and/or non-disclosure of AI use.

Casual games are a different beast, with a broader audience and far less scrutiny over individual titles. In addition, the coding and visual rendering capabilities of state-of-the-art multimodal AI models like Gemini 3 have got good enough (with some scaffolding) to create simple but coherent casual games using natural language prompts.

Platforms like Gambo, Chaotix and Rosebud AI are racing to build around this capability, although I suspect existing scale players in gaming and/or video will be the big winners here.

Google launched a closed beta of YouTube Playables Builder in December, enabling select creators to generate “fun, bite-sized games in minutes and share them directly with your audience on YouTube”.

Roblox was early in adding an AI assistant to its Studio. I expect it to move deeper into vibe-based AI asset generation and launch an official equivalent of Lemonade.

16.) The Magnificent Seven will kneecap some AI unicorns

I wouldn’t want to be a medium-sized AI start up right now. Unless you’ve got some seriously proprietary data, a niche that’s small enough not to attract the attention of the big AI companies and/or a product experience that’s slicker than a jellied eel, then I’d suggest you’re at risk of being ‘Sherlocked’.

Prime candidate: Gamma - recently valued at $2.1bn and billed as a ‘PowerPoint-killer’, I think it’s likely Google, Microsoft and Apple will AI-ify Slides, PowerPoint and Keynote sufficiently to shore up their respective customer bases (see prediction #6).

Right, that’s enough predictions for now. See you back here in the summer for my customary mid-year check-in.