Across the media and entertainment industry, AI innovation is changing the way we consume content and reimagining how films, series and events are produced, edited, delivered and monetized. Though we’re still in the early days, the benefits of AI in production and post are clear and immediate. New innovations are continually making the technology more accessible, unlocking new possibilities, especially with the rise of agentic AI.
Content providers like Prime Video have already implemented generative AI-powered features, such as AI Topics, that offer a value-added viewer experience. It presents programming options to viewers based on an understanding of their preferences, so they don’t have to endlessly scroll to find something interesting to watch. Another feature, X-Ray Recaps, creates brief, spoiler-free summaries to catch you up on your favorite TV show, whether you need a refresher on the full season, a single episode or part of an episode.
Behind the scenes, generative AI is helping content owners breathe new life into archives that might otherwise be collecting dust. They can use it to quickly and efficiently analyze and tag vast libraries, then cultivate new engagement experiences for their fans using existing resources. Recently, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) launched a new search engine that allows viewers to explore the entire PBS library based on their interests —across subgenres, topics, themes and even moods. Using generative AI, they cataloged and tagged metadata for more than 700,000 assets in less than six months.
Beyond the limitless potential of generative AI, agentic AI is quickly proving a gamechanger as well, driving smarter workflows and new monetization opportunities. An AI agent is so much more than just a bot. Rather, it’s a highly sophisticated software program that can interact with its environment and accomplish predefined tasks. You can chain these agents together to execute complex, multi-step actions, which effectively allows us to increase our productivity and focus efforts on the most meaningful aspects of our roles.
AI-powered agents can help M&E companies manage petabytes of video content and prepare assets for different downstream distribution channels. They can extract technical specifications, summaries, and both chapter and shot-level details. Additionally, agentic AI can help reduce costs for features add-ons that can be complex to deploy, such as ad break detection, skipping credits and semantic search.
As we head into 2026, more studios and professionals will embrace agentic AI. I don’t think it’s an understatement to estimate that billions of agents will soon be working alongside humans. Assisted by fully managed AI services in the cloud, companies can harness the technology’s full power, without the operational overhead and a lot less development complexity. It will become easier to take ideas from concept to testing and into production in days or minutes, rather than months or years. Backed by the scalability and security of the cloud, AI agents will dramatically augment capabilities and accelerate innovation for those with the vision to adopt them. Personally, I can’t wait to see what human ingenuity, supercharged with AI, will lead to next.
Samira Panah Bakhtiar is General Manager of Media & Entertainment, Games & Sports Business at AWS (https://aws.amazon.com).