Blog: AI

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators

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Hanna Kahlert

24 Jun 2025

Cultural trends

generative AI music

Advertising is a critical component of the entertainment industries. It supports free tiers of video streaming, forms the backbone of social platform revenues, and contributes significantly to the music industry through sync, licensing, and ad-supported streaming.

min read

Grok meets Telegram: Why is AI being shoehorned into messaging platforms?

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Hanna Kahlert

5 Jun 2025

Product Strategy

In an unusual twist, on May 28, 2025, xAI agreed to pay Telegram $300 million in cash to be integrated into the messaging platform (per Reuters ). It is not every day you see a feature paying its platform to be combined into its existing service, but, Elon Musk is not often one for the traditional playbook.

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AI futures: Culture wars

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Mark Mulligan

4 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Creator workflows

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a pace unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the speed of the human brain.

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Where do you stand on AI’s transformation of the video creator economy?

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Ben Woods

9 May 2025

Audience Insight

Artificial intelligence is imposing revolutionary change on the creator economy. Tried and tested workflows are being automated, streamlined, and recalibrated by large language learning models that are promising to rid creators of tedious tasks.

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AI narration: hope or hindrance to audio creation?

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Laura Fisher

8 May 2025

Cultural trends

The conversation around AI narration has awakened a historic tension, one that emerges at the dawn of every technological epoch. The tension is not just about the capabilities of AI itself, but the gnawing uncertainty of what it means for humans.

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AI prompting is an art form that will reshape creation

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Ben Woods

1 May 2025

Product Strategy

Key takeaways from this blog: Generative AI is reshaping creative workflows, with MIDiA’s research highlighting how AI-only video production is already achievable The next creative divide will be defined by prompting skill level: those who can expertly translate vision into AI prompts will be ahead of the curve and set the standard for creators As AI tools evolve, MIDiA foresees a new generation of AI-native creators poised to redefine professional-grade output Who will be left behind by the AI revolution? Many industries are predicted to pivot towards autonomous workflows that will streamline some jobs out of existence.

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There is no Pirates of the Caribbean 6: How long is the internet going to work?

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Hanna Kahlert

29 Apr 2025

Cultural trends

Generative AI is improving, and its use is increasing. AI tools have rapidly accelerated , and, as a result, AI is now widely used to generate lesson plans, find recipe measurements, and draft lists of potential client companies.

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What does it mean for OpenAI to go social?

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Hanna Kahlert

24 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Key takeaways from this blog: Tech giants are doubling down on AI, with social seemingly the next frontier for innovation OpenAI may be flipping the script: not adding AI to a social platform, but building social around AI This could change how we create and share online – but potentially conflict with MIDiA's findings on the reasons audiences use social media platforms AI has been the rallying cry of tech companies for the last two years.

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Creators want to learn, and Adobe’s AI assistants want to listen

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Ben Woods

11 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Key takeaways from this blog: Creators want more than just productivity. Over half of video creators want tools that help them improve their skills, not just speed up production (according to MIDiA's Video Creator Tools Survey Q2 2024) AI assistants should support and engage creators.

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Suno, Alexa, and the rise of ‘create to consume’

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Ben Woods

21 Mar 2025

Creator economy

This blog was created with collaborative inputs from Ben Woods, Mark Mulligan , Tatiana Cirisano , and Kriss Thakrar . It is hard to think about generative AI without coming back to copyright. There is a pressing need to find IP safeguards before even more copyrighted content is used to train AI models.

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Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audio is a blessing and curse for authors

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Rutger Rosenborg

26 Feb 2025

Product Strategy

As we covered in August 2024, the future of AI-generated audiobooks is here. Up until this month, however, streaming platforms themselves had yet to fully embrace AI audiobook narration. Now, Spotify has announced their support for ElevenLabs ’ AI-generated audiobook content, paving the way for end-to-end audiobook generation that could capture audiences who demonstrate no clear preference between AI- and human-generated content.

min read

Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

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Ben Woods

21 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

YouTube’s growing strength on smart TVs is a head scratching moment for the video industry. The social video platform recently revealed that US consumers watched 1 billion hours of YouTube content daily on their smart TVs in December 2024.

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What the Reuters AI copyright decision means for the music industry

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Tatiana Cirisano

20 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Last week saw a major AI copyright case judgement in the US – and it fell in favour of human creators. The case stems all the way back to 2020, when Thomson Reuters sued the legal AI startup ROSS Intelligence, alleging that it reproduced Reuters’ legal research to create a competing, AI-powered legal platform.

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MIDiA’s analysts answer questions on their 2025 predictions

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Karol Severin

5 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

We are delighted by the overwhelmingly positive response and discussions sparked during our 2025 predictions webinar. We are grateful for all the engaging questions you asked during the session. Though we were unable to get through all of the excellent questions in the one-hour window, we certainly have not forgotten them.

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Meta-podcasts are coming for the news, not the podcast industry

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Rutger Rosenborg

5 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Although Google has arguably cornered the podcast market through YouTube already, by employing AI, the company may be making it even harder for competitors to catch up.In October 2024, MIDiA covered the development of NotebookLM and its ability to disrupt the informational and educational podcast space.

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AI is reshaping the music creator economy, and that change will reshape the music business

Cover image for AI is reshaping the music creator economy, and that change will reshape the music business

Mark Mulligan

3 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Creator economy

MIDiA is pleased to announce the release of not one but two new music creator economy reports. These are our latest " State of the music creator economy "and " Music creator tools forecasts "reports. These annual deliverables have quickly become industry benchmarks, and if you operate in the music creator economy, they are must-reads.

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The unflattening of music

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Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2025

Cultural trends

[This post builds on two other recent MIDiA posts: Background music and What got you here ] At the half way point of the decade it is a good time to reflect on how the business of music is reshaping the culture of music – and where this is heading.

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DeepSeek and Rednote signal the dawning era of APAC

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Hanna Kahlert

29 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

The AI race is a tense one. Billions of dollars have been poured into the likes of OpenAI. Meanwhile, the US and UK governments, among others, have pledged to invest heavily in AI development, suggesting that they feel it is of critical importance to “win” the new space race.

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Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Cover image for Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Olivia Jones

23 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Note: Following the publication of this piece, Spotify released a statement regarding Pelly's article, which is reproduced in full at the bottom of this page. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine , Liz Pelly published “ The Ghosts in the Machine ”.

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Are creators wise to sell their offcuts to AI companies?

Cover image for Are creators wise to sell their offcuts to AI companies?

Ben Woods

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Most will be familiar with the adage: ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’. Despite being a cliché, the saying lives on as it cuts to the heart of how individuals and companies perceive value.

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