Executive summary As part of a series that addresses the impact of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) across industries, this white paper delves into its transformative potential on the media, entertainment and sport industry. It does not cover cross-industry topics but aims to clarify potential opportunities, challenges and disruptions, providing leaders and key stakeholders with insights to navigate these transformative times. Given the industry’s societal impact, it is important for players to develop a shared and comprehensive understanding of genAI’s role in the evolution of the creative landscape. GenAI’s impact on the media, entertainment and sport industry is expected to be more profound than on other industries. It can not only drive efficiency and productivity, enhance audience engagement and optimize revenues, but also impact the core of the industry by augmenting human creativity, acting as a collaborator, and empowering humans to overcome previous limitations. It can support every stage of content creation, distribution and consumption. In the early stages, it can speed up prototyping of alternative ideas. By analysing vast amounts of data and providing actionable insights, it can form an iterative feedback loop, where insights from each stage inform the others. This content innovation loop can enhance creativity and improve the ability to predict audience preferences, in turn optimizing distribution and engagement, expanding reach and increasing revenues. Society will benefit from expanded access to information and content, as translation and format barriers will be removed. Adoption has already accelerated in recent years, with both AI-native organizations and established players investing heavily in it. Despite genAI’s potential, however, the report highlights challenges that must be addressed. The industry needs to pay close attention to the risk of misinformation and disinformation, uncertainty of return on investment (ROI), the need for harmonized governance frameworks and practices to advance trust and transparency, the technological readiness, and the implementation of foundational requirements, including digital core infrastructure. Readiness varies across the workforce. While some creators embrace genAI’s democratizing effects of lowering technical barriers to high-quality content creation, others remain cautious due to concerns over job displacement, intellectual property (IP) and likeness rights. Education and upskilling are crucial to ensure the responsible and transparent development of genAI products and features, and for effective governance and accountability. This paper also identifies potential future disruptions. These include a shift from search- based to AI-driven content discovery, new consumption experiences through the convergence of emerging technologies, and AI-enabled creativity sparking a new era in content creation, with AI contributing to expand productions. In this landscape, collaborations, such as those between technology companies and publishers, could be the key to navigating the unknown. These developments open groundbreaking possibilities but also call for a re-evaluation of traditional business and operating models. While genAI has the potential to transform the industry, successful, responsible adoption at scale hinges on a holistic, transparent and human- centric approach, requiring strategic leadership, workforce development, robust technical infrastructure and wide adoption of governance frameworks and practices. It calls for multistakeholder collaboration across society, including industry, governments, civil society, labour and leading experts from scientific and humanistic disciplines.Generative AI is poised to revolutionize the creative process, yet its impact and challenges require ethical considerations and governance frameworks. Artificial Intelligence in Media, Entertainment and Sport 5

Artificial Intelligence in Media Entertainment and Sport 2025