(Not from the happy hours or the blackjack table)
How the shifting role of technology drove a high-stakes conversation.

At this year’s NAB conference in Las Vegas, there was a palpable tension in the air. 

And I’m not talking about the vibes—the interpersonal energy, the parties, or the weather. That was all phenomenal. The demos? Killer. The brands in attendance? Admirable. And the people and conversations were as good as advertised. 

But beneath that excitement is a tension around the INNOVATIVE potential of the tech we were all there to discuss. 

• What’s the value? 
• Are we approaching strategy strategically enough? 
• Build or buy? 
• Role of partners? 
• And why is there no ISV coordination? Chaos! 
• Cost control? 
• Human impact

From the panels, to the keynotes, to the cocktail hour chats, these points came up again and again. I’m calling them The Four Anxieties of NAB.

Thankfully, beyond the temporary distraction of the happy hours, there’s a pathway to real relief. Here at Wizeline, we’ve helped navigate these challenges before.

BEFORE WE CONTINUE: It’s important to remember that anxieties are often complicated, and can’t be resolved with simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. We understand this better than most. The first step is awareness.

Anxiety One: “Can we avoid the jobs part of automation?”

The first anxiety revolves around the role of humans versus AI-led automation in the future of media and entertainment. 

Walking around the expo floor, some form of ‘automation’ (pre-production, post-production, live production, etc.) could be seen slapped on basically one out of every two booths. And that hot topic clearly caused a stir.  

There were a ton of conversations about the importance of the human touch, the importance of art, and the significance of the human role in creative work. It’s obvious I guess. The writer’s strike wasn’t that long ago and AI is only getting more capable. The conversation continues.

Protecting jobs and not displacing people, while gaining the value of AI, is a key theme we experienced in our chats and run-ins and, as one participant put, “this is all a bit contradictory and dishonest, isn’t it?”

Automation (spurred hard this year by AI), by design, automates work that humans currently do. How can we avoid this fact? 

If the investment is to be made and the ROI to be gained, it often links back to reducing total cost of operations, which often means fewer people doing the work. 

This is a tension media executives grappled with in panels and speeches, and it’s a necessary conversation as media organizations navigate their transformations and try to remain competitive in a fast-changing space. 

Anxiety Two: “If we use AI, are we still pro people?”

The second, related anxiety is in the modern media organization’s overall absolute posture on AI. 

It often starts in a one on-one-chat with a smirk and a whisper – 

“What do you really think about this whole AI thing?”

“What happens to the people?”

What struck me is the binary framing that keeps coming up. And this isn’t just in casual conversation, it was everywhere – stage talks especially.

Are we pro-human or pro-AI? How do we apply our long-standing brand values to the question, and how do we safeguard them as we dabble in clipping, transcription, superresolution, contextualization, archival search, rights management and so much more?

The casual answers just seem too black-and-white. Truth is, it’s not just a “yes” or “no”, pro-human or pro-technology issue. 

The reality is likely much more nuanced and variable across functions, value streams and processes. Navigating this tension is crucial for organizations aiming to integrate AI effectively without losing sight of their most important asset – the people.

Anxiety Three: “Are we getting ROI from all of this personalization?”

The third anxiety involves connecting efforts to personalize experiences and engage users in novel, tech-enabled ways with actual business outcomes. 

We heard it framed by one attendee as bridging “personal to wallet.” Nice and simple.

“If we overhaul this playlist UI, or use our data to drive intelligent content, or segment the product for these audiences, is it making an impact that outweighs the effort?” 

At NAB, this conversation came up plenty and – for what it’s worth – at Wizeline, we’ve seen similar discussions across sectors this year. As organizations seek to get more practical in their investments, taste for bleeding edge investments is waning amongst certain stakeholders. 

Retention, new revenue, and subscriber growth. These are the bread of the media business, so tech’s next-big-whatever must make better bread, not just add a cherry on top.

And with AI now only adding to the FOMO (Future of Media Opportunity? Fear of Missing Out?) discussions, the tension is rising. 

Right when we’re starting to get practical a new hype-cycle has begun.

Anxiety Four: “Where do we even begin, when the floor keeps shifting?”

The fourth anxiety centers on the reticence about where to even start with AI – partly due to poor clarity on where we’re even at in this “digital transformation” saga. 

Companies know they need to become more like a Netflix— adaptable and agile and ready to wield the latest technologies in their favor—but they’re faced with an overwhelming array of opportunities. 

This comes in many forms.

• They worry about making the wrong moves: Will their investments remain relevant, or will they be quickly outpaced by change? 
• They struggle to find interoperable / well-integrated solutions: Discrete, compelling value propositions from ISVs are all over the show floor… but can they work together? It’s a lot to manage.
• They struggle with build / buy: A classic concern now exasperated by the opportunity to differentiate and (maybe even) build moats with AI.
• They worry about over-engineering: They struggle with at once needing to reduce engineering costs while accelerating pace of change.
• They worry about cost control: Cloud cost control is already a problem. Now add the token consumption, continuous indexing and shifting model-landscape of AI to the mix.

This all creates a sort of fatigue that was clear and present throughout NAB. 

It drove some great one-on-one conversations and invited plenty of philosophical waxing but, inevitably, everybody was there for answers. 

So are there answers?

Conclusion: No more fear and loathing.

These anxieties of NAB highlight why it’s crucial to have openness to the sheer complexity of applying transformative technology in business. Answers are nuanced, approaches complex, timelines hard to anticipate and roadmaps are likely to shift.

For example, you can’t just layer AI onto existing workflows and call it an “AI-driven workflow.” The workflows themselves likely need rethinking. 

We advise organizations—whether in media and entertainment or beyond—to start with deep strategic planning. This means detailed, procedural, hierarchical planning that outlines clear steps: if this, then that. It also means building adaptability, scenario planning and a willingness to pivot into your culture. In many ways, this is Product Thinking 101 for organizational transformation. 

It doesn’t have to be a years-long, complicated endeavor. It can deliver near-term value in sustainable ways, but it starts with good strategy and a supportive organizational culture—both top-down and bottom-up.

This is what we heard from some of the smartest people at NAB, and it’s what we came away with. For us, it validates our approach, and it’s something we bring to our clients through our AI Readiness Assessments, AI Design Sprints, and Strategy Workshops. 

As great as it would be for us at Wizeline to say we have all of the answers for every organization on the four anxieties; we simply don’t. Not yet, anyway. There’s no whitepaper coming that bullets simplistic answers.

What we do have is specialization in this space and a culture of conversation. Our goal is to build holistic, actionable clarity on the art of the possible while keeping a scientific, product-centric obsession over ROI.