Microsoft at IBC 2025: Accelerating the frontier of media and entertainment with AI

The global business landscape is entering the era of the Frontier Firm—a new reality where organizations aren’t just adapting to change but driving it. For media and entertainment leaders, embracing agentic AI with human creativity is the key to unlocking new value, accelerating innovation, and shaping the future of the industry. We are already seeing 90% of our strategic media and entertainment customers are leveraging Microsoft and partner cloud and AI solutions to accelerate their journey toward becoming Frontier Firms.

Becoming a Frontier Firm in media and entertainment

A Frontier Firm is a next-generation media organization that reimagines what’s possible—across storytelling, audience engagement, operations, and monetization. These companies embrace agentic AI to unlock creativity in every corner of the business, from editorial and production to marketing, distribution, and strategy. By deploying AI agents that act, learn, and adapt, Frontier Firms empower teams to focus on high-value work, accelerate innovation, and deliver intelligent, personalized experiences at scale.

In the era of the Frontier Firm, AI is not just automating tasks in media and entertainment—it’s unleashing creativity across the workforce.

• Enrich employee experiences: AI helps employees by taking care of repetitive tasks, giving them more time to focus on creative and strategic work, and connecting their tools and data into smooth, intelligent workflows.
• Reinvent audience engagement: AI transforms how media companies connect with audiences by enabling hyper-personalized content, adapting stories to viewer preferences, and delivering experiences that drive deeper engagement across platforms and formats.
• Reshape business processes: AI streamlines media operations—from metadata tagging and localization to campaign management and distribution—by automating routine tasks and enabling agile, outcome-driven teams that focus on strategic oversight and creative excellence.
• Bend the curve on innovation: Generative AI accelerates content creation in media by helping writers, editors, and designers ideate, produce, and refine assets faster, while preserving creative uniqueness and unlocking new formats like synthetic video and multimodal storytelling.

As McKinsey’s Technology Trend Outlook 2025 notes, “Those who act with focus and agility will not only unlock new value but also shape the future of their industries and the future of today’s emerging frontier technologies.”

Microsoft media and entertainment customers trailblazing AI innovation

Media and entertainment customers today are embracing what it means to be a Frontier Firm by leading with vision, investing in talent and technology, and boldly experimenting to shape the future of entertainment and drive industry transformation. The Frontier Firms of media and entertainment are not defined by the size of their library or reach, but by the boldness to reimagine how stories are created, how teams collaborate, and how value is discovered in every moment. Microsoft is helping organizations around the world build the foundation for this future.

Streamlining media workflows

The next wave for media is not about automating yesterday’s processes but rather about reimagining the entire back office operation and production pipeline. From streamlining editorial workflows to managing the full content lifecycle, leaders in media and entertainment are looking for tools that free teams to focus on storytelling innovation instead of manual tasks. Examples of our customers reimaging their business operations include:

• The National Football League (NFL) is one of the world’s most popular sports leagues, with 335 events each season and hundreds of millions of fans across the globe renewed its partnership with Microsoft. Incorporating the new Microsoft solutions will help drive innovation and enhance the game day experience leaguewide from the sideline to team headquarters to the league office. The NFL is implementing Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI to enhance sideline evaluation and workflows, scout new talent, and streamline operations that keep the stadiums running smoothly. The NFL added an AI assistant to its existing Combine App, using Azure OpenAI Service to deliver fast, accurate answers to natural language questions in real-time. Teams now access insights in seconds, helping coaches and scouts evaluate talent faster—even while athletes are still on the field.
• The National Basketball Association (NBA) transformed fan engagement, operational agility, and data security by migrating to Microsoft Azure—unlocking real-time insights, scalable AI innovation, and personalized digital experiences across its global ecosystem.
• The Indiana Pacers use Azure AI Speech to create a solution that delivers real-time captions with the speed and accuracy required for a live game-day experience. Using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Pacers Sports & Entertainment pioneered a real-time captioning system that transforms live basketball into an inclusive, immersive experience for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and non-English-speaking fans redefining accessibility in sports.
• LaLiga uses Microsoft Azure Arc to unify cloud and on-premises operations across 42 stadiums, enabling low-latency AI-powered insights and seamless fan experiences that boost productivity, security, and engagement.
• Dentsu implemented Microsoft Azure AI Foundry and Azure OpenAI Services to build a predictive analytics copilot that supports media insights, cutting analysis time by 80% and overall time to insight by 90%.
• Kantar modernized its global IT infrastructure using Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline endpoint management, reduce costly manual processes, and boost employee productivity—ultimately enhancing client outcomes through improved operational efficiency.
• The International Tennis Federation (ITF) transformed match-day strategy and coaching effectiveness by deploying Microsoft Azure Databricks, Azure SQL Database, Surface devices, and Azure Data Lake to deliver real-time performance insights through the Billie Jean King Cup Match Insights app, empowering athletes and coaches with data-driven decisions.

Empowering content creators

For media and entertainment, Microsoft Copilot is an intelligent assistant creators have always needed—from answering simple data questions to supporting advanced production work that was once out of reach. By putting AI at the side of every editor, producer, and storyteller, we’re not just making processes faster—we’re expanding what’s possible. That means more capacity for creativity, stronger content lifecycles, and measurable business impact at every stage.

• WPP’s T&Pm agency revolutionized creative workflows by using Microsoft Azure OpenAI and Sora to rapidly prototype and scale personalized video content—enabling faster production, deeper experimentation, and more emotionally resonant storytelling across global campaigns.
• Penguin Random House (a subsidiary of Bertelsmann), the world’s largest book publisher, partnered with Microsoft to address the European Union Accessibility Act and promote inclusivity by automating the generation of high-quality, context-aware alternative text for images in over 160,000 eBooks. Using Azure and Azure AI Foundry, the solution extracts image context from digital books and generates descriptive captions, dramatically reducing manual effort while ensuring compliance. The initiative not only enhances accessibility for visually impaired readers but also delivers projected annual savings of USD1.5 to 1.8 million.

“Our collaboration with Microsoft’s Industry Solutions Engineering team has enabled us to meet the requirements of the EU Accessibility Act and continue our quest to make accessible content for all our readers. Building on the Azure platform allowed us to utilize out-of-the-box security and functionality to craft a cost-effective solution that pulled together efficient compute functions alongside AI Foundry. Our ability to build quickly in a controlled environment will allow us to deliver compliant and accessible content in a fraction of the time and cost.”

—Chris Hart, Vice President at Penguin Random House

• By integrating solutions like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service, Dentsu is accelerating every stage of the creative cycle—from brainstorming and briefing to campaign execution and performance analysis. Concept art and campaign assets that once took weeks can now be produced in days or even hours, meeting the rising expectations of clients for speed and quality. In fact, 62% of their surveyed users reported a noticeable improvement in the quality of content created with Microsoft 365 Copilot, while teams are gaining deeper insights into campaign performance and audience segmentation.¹

“Copilot helps close the loop after a campaign goes live, enabling creators to quickly determine what’s working and why—making it an indispensable partner for modern creative teams” 

—Kate Slade, Head of Responsible AI, Dentsu

• HyperCinema transforms live entertainment by using Azure OpenAI to generate hyper personalized, real-time storytelling experiences that immerse guests in brand worlds—scaling effortlessly across exhibitions, theme parks, and retail venues.
• Pixar Animation Studios democratized high-fidelity rendering for global creators by leveraging Microsoft Azure HPC, enabling anyone—from students to professionals—to participate in its RenderMan® Challenge with scalable cloud compute power.

Elevating fan engagement and unlocking monetization

The real opportunity for media and entertainment lies in the synergy of AI and data. By unifying content signals with audience behavior in real time, AI is unlocking new ways for engagement and monetization. It’s not just about driving the next click—it’s about creating responsive experiences that build lasting loyalty. When data becomes actionable through AI, media and entertainment customers are connecting stories to audiences in ways that were never possible.

• Premier League is redefining the fan experience with its new fan-facing digital platforms that leverage Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies to usher in a new era of intelligent and intuitive fan experiences. This partnership marks one of the most significant technological transformations in the league’s history, anchored around four key areas: fan engagement, match insights and analysis, cloud transformation, and organizational productivity. Leveraging Azure AI Foundry and OpenAI, the partnership will deliver real-time match data, interactive analysis, and secure media experiences—setting a new standard for global sports technology.
• Major League Soccer (MLS) transformed its fan engagement strategy by integrating Microsoft Azure AI into its revamped league app, delivering real-time match insights, personalized content, and interactive features through the new Sidekick companion experience. Sidekick uses agentic AI to anticipate fan needs—delivering real-time match insights and personalized content exactly when fans want it. Co-developed with Microsoft and OpenAI, Sidekick adapts to each user, testing and refining engagement to maximize relevance for millions of fans.
• The NBA transformed its global fan engagement and operational agility by migrating to Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Service, enabling real-time data insights, scalable AI innovation, enhanced security, and personalized digital experiences across its ecosystem.
• Art Basel transformed global art fair experiences by deploying Microsoft Azure AI Foundry and Copilot to power a secure, real-time companion app that bridges physical and digital worlds, enabling instant artwork recognition, personalized guidance, and deeper visitor engagement across five international cities.
• Fukuoka SoftBank HAWKS revolutionizes the stadium experience by deploying a lifelike AI avatar of retired star Ryota Igarashi—powered by Microsoft Azure AI—to engage fans in real time, driving full-season suite sellouts and redefining digital fan interaction. The AI avatar, trained to match Igarashi’s intonation, speed, and lip sync, appears on a large display and communicates in real time, answering questions from users, giving player information, commenting on the current game, and cheering for the SoftBank HAWKS.
• Universal Destinations & Experiences, a division of Comcast, is transforming theme park operations and guest experiences by leveraging Microsoft Azure and Azure Data Explorer to deliver real-time data insights, enhance personalization, and streamline digital innovation across its global attractions.

AI-powered Microsoft platform enables ecosystem co-innovation

Microsoft offers comprehensive cloud and AI solutions that enable media and entertainment businesses to improve efficiency, deliver personalized and engaging experiences, and unlock new revenue. As platform-first company, we also empower our partner ecosystem with AI-platform, Azure cloud infrastructure, and robust tools to extend Microsoft offers or build industry-specific solutions that drive real business impact. Discover how some of our leading partners are shaping the future of media and entertainment:

• Adobe Experience Cloud and Dynamics 365 integrate seamlessly with Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing AI-powered marketing directly into Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Word. Media teams can now create campaigns, manage approvals, and track performance—all within familiar workflows, accelerating time-to-market and scaling audience engagement.
• MediaKind and DAZN delivered the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 globally using Azure’s cloud-native infrastructure, enabling dynamic scaling and broadcast-quality streaming for millions of fans.
• Support Partners’ Catalyst, built on Azure, empowers retailers to automate video production with brand-trained AI agents—cutting costs and delivering content faster across every channel.
• SOUTHWORKS, MediaKind, and Microsoft Security launched the first Media Security Copilot, protecting streaming workflows and ensuring content security at every stage.
• Cognizant is helping media organizations modernize business processes by deploying Dynamics 365 into core workflows, enabling them to take full advantage of Microsoft’s AI platform to unlock efficiency and insight.
• UIC Digital is leveraging our entire AI technology stack to automate live broadcasts, complete with real-time language translation and personalized experiences that bring events closer to audiences everywhere.
• At IBC, IPV is unveiling Curator’s next evolution, powered by Azure Content Understanding and Microsoft Foundry APIs for advanced image and video generation.

From marketing and sports to security and creative workflows, Microsoft and its partner ecosystem are redefining what’s possible—helping media and entertainment companies invent the future of storytelling with AI.

Join the movement of Frontier Firm

The future of media and entertainment is being written today by organizations that blend human creativity with AI-powered intelligence. Join the movement. Join us at IBC 2025, attend sessions, check out demos, and meet with Microsoft executives who are accelerating frontier creativity with AI. Check out this document for details of Microsoft presence at IBC2025.

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¹ An upcoming commissioned Total Economic Impact™ study of Microsoft’s Gen AI and Agentic AI Solutions for media and entertainment organizations conducted by Forrester Consulting, 2025.

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Source: Microsoft Industry Blog