The data is in: 72% of media leaders see AI returns, but culture is the next hurdle

From the NAB Show to Google Cloud Next to Google I/O, the advanced multimodal capabilities and inspiring customer stories from across the media and entertainment supply chain are proving 2025 is a breakthrough moment for scaling AI — a sharp contrast to the widespread experimentation and pilots of previous years.

Our annual ROI of AI in media and entertainment survey , conducted by Google Cloud and National Research Group, revealed that 72% of executives report their organizations continue to see compounding returns from their generative AI initiatives, with tangible improvements in key areas like productivity, marketing, customer experience, business growth, and security. However, recent market insights suggest that cloud adoption has plateaued as organizations encounter more complex use cases, tighter budgets, and ongoing talent shortages.

So, where exactly do we stand?

Media and entertainment is building tomorrow, right now

Ultimately, AI’s true power isn’t necessarily reinvention but enabling organizations to build on what they already do best, in new and better ways. I believe this entire shift is underpinned by the cloud, which provides the scalable infrastructure, unified data platforms, and advanced capabilities necessary to bring AI into media and entertainment workflows. A modern, open data cloud is no longer optional — it is the essential foundation for building intelligent media organizations.

At Google Cloud, our customers are already putting this into practice. 

• LIV Golf launched a new “Any Shot, Any Time” feature that puts fans at the center of the action, enabling them to select the golfers, teams, and groups they want to watch at any given time, as well as searchable and customizable on-demand highlight reels from any round of any LIV tournament. 

• Formula E created an AI-powered audio race report using Google Cloud’s gen AI to generate rich, descriptive audio summaries of every E-Prix race, making motorsport more accessible for blind and visually impaired fans. These reports provide a dynamic recap that captures the excitement and key moments of the race — available on-demand shortly after the chequered flag.

• Major League Baseball (MLB) modernized its legacy business intelligence solutions by migrating to Looker, empowering decision-makers from 30 baseball clubs to access, analyze, and explore their own data. With strong user adoption boosting data usage by 60% and 2-3x faster reporting speeds, MLB is delivering new ways to crunch numbers and transform the ways fans engage with the sport. 

In other words, the future isn’t about replacing human creators, but augmenting their expertise and skills with powerful tools that free up time for more strategic and valuable work. 

AI is delivering real-world business impact 

Over the last two years, the industry has rapidly embraced AI, moving from proofs-of-concept to scaled production deployments that embed gen AI into real-world applications in record time. Our annual survey not only confirmed the continued value of gen AI but also highlighted its fundamental role in the fierce competition for attention by improving customer experiences (57%) and marketing outcomes (59%). 

In addition, the growing use of AI agents — intelligent systems that can autonomously reason, plan, and perform tasks — adds even more urgency for adoption, as they offer new ways to tackle core industry challenges by simplifying creative processes, augmenting human creativity, scaling content production, and making it easier to harness data for personalization and real-time insights. Our research found that more than half (54%) of media and entertainment executives report their organizations are now actively using AI agents in production, with 40% reporting they have launched more than 10. 

While the top use cases for using AI agents align with wider industry trends in areas like security, software development, and product innovation and design, according to their executives, media and entertainment companies are quickly progressing to more industry-specific applications . We already see significant adoption for content and asset management (29%), content and asset creation (28%) and monetization (23%).

Perspectives from the field: Culture, impact, goat paths

At this year’s International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) , I met with dozens of global companies and hosted hundreds of executives at our Google Cloud and Google events, including moderating the “ From Concept to Consumer: Navigating AI’s Toughest Hurdles in Media ” with Anil Jain, Google Cloud’s managing director of consumer industries, and global executives from pay television and public broadcast organizations. This gave me the opportunity to hear diverse perspectives from across the industry and the partner ecosystem at the Beach, on the show floor, and at Amsterdam’s iconic Tuschinski Theatre.

Here are my three big takeaways from IBC 2025: 

1. Culture was this year’s standout theme.

The need to foster the right organizational culture for the AI era was front and center throughout the event. I’ve seen this same shift reflected in our work and conversations with customers over the last year. As more businesses move from AI experimentation to production, they are realizing they need to be ready to utilize AI effectively .

The key challenge now is not understanding the promise of AI or what it can do, but how to fundamentally change the way people think about and use technology in their daily work. Many of the panels and sessions consistently highlighted the importance of creating a culture of innovation, not only to encourage AI experimentation but also provide the foundational resources needed for learning how to use these emerging technologies. 

Many agreed that identifying practical, relevant use cases that can demonstrate immediate value for employees is paramount. Instead of aiming to use AI to create a film from scratch, for example, we should cultivate a mindset where people start viewing AI as a useful tool they can naturally turn to when completing their everyday tasks and workflows. 

2. What’s the ROI for my organization?

Many of the discussions centered around measuring the success of AI , especially when use cases don’t necessarily translate into easily quantifiable business outcomes like cost savings or revenue. For instance, using AI to do research or speed up story creation saves time, but the impact might be less tangible, such as improving job satisfaction rather than increased project output. 

Here, the resounding advice was to prioritize use cases that encourage familiarity with tools, essentially building the “muscle memory” for AI. Tracking adoption and usage can be helpful in understanding how real people are interacting with AI tools and whether they are actually becoming embedded into workflows. These metrics are particularly useful for technologies like gen AI, which rely on changes in behavior to succeed, helping to gauge its value and overall acceptance. 

3. Goat paths vs. golden paths.

“Goat paths” are processes that have been created naturally or intuitively over time as the path of least resistance – the way people actually do their work – but often become inefficient. This is in contrast to “golden paths,” which are formally designed, documented, and supported. 

So, how do organizations reconcile these conflicting approaches? This is where AI can help converge these into processes that are both formalized and intuitive. At Google Cloud, we encourage programs to build organizational AI fluency to provide employees with hands-on practice within real-world scenarios, easy access to training resources, and personalized learning paths that can be customized based on learning styles, skill level, and job roles. 

For instance, we recently launched AI Boost Bites , a new series of short AI training videos designed to test and build AI skills and capabilities. Instead of long training courses or big time commitments, individuals can quickly get to know Google AI like Gemini , Veo , and NotebookLM and how they can help with creative content generation, market intelligence, problem-solving, and automating repetitive tasks — in under 10 minutes. 

To get you started — here are some of the ways we’re activating AI across Google.

As 2025 unfolds, it’s clear that AI has arrived in the media and entertainment industry, presenting significant opportunities for those ready to embrace it. Creating a culture where AI can be responsibly used to generate both innovation and business results is paramount, transforming both goat paths and golden paths, and effectively your business, to meet today's challenges.